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UNITED STATES OF AMEEICA. 










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By DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY. 


17 TO 27 VANDEW/TEf\ ST 

'J^ewYo^K:* 




















The Seaside Library. 

POCKET EDITION. 


NO. PRICE. 

1 Yolande. By William Black 20 

2 Molly Bawa. By “ The Duchess ” 20 

3 The Mill on the Floss. By George Eliot 20 

4 Under Two Flags. By“Ouida” 20 

5 Admiral’s Ward. By Mrs. Alexander.. 20 

6 Portia. By “ The Duchess” 20 

7 File No. 113. By Emile Gaboriau 20 

8 East Lynne. By Mrs. Henry Wood .... 20 

9 Wanda. By ‘‘Ouida” 20 

10 The Old Curiosity-Shop. By Dickens. 20 

11 John Halifax, Gentleman. Miss Mulock 20 

12 Other People’s Money. By Gaboriau. 20 

13 Eyre’s Acquittal. By Helen -B. Mathers 10 

14 Airy Fairy Lilian. By “ The Duchess ” 10 


15 Jane Eyre. By Charlotte Bront6 20 

16 Phyllis. By ‘‘ The Duchess ” 20 

17 The Wooing O’t. By Mrs. Alexander,* 20 

18 Shandon Bells. By William Black. ... 20 

19 Her Mother’s Sin. By the Author of 

“ Dora Thorne ” 10 

20 Within an Inch of His Life. By Emile 

Gaboriau 20 

21 Sunrise. By William Black 20 

22 David Copperfleld. Dickens. Vol. I.. 20 

22 David CopperfteVd. Dickens. Vol. II. 20 

23 A Princess of Thule. By William Black 20 

24 Pickwick Papers. Dickens. Vpl. I... 20 

24 Pickwick Papers. Dickens. Vol. II. . 20 

25 Mrs. Geoffrey. By “ The Duchess ”... 20 

26 Monsieur Lecoq. By Gaboriau. Vol. I. 20 

26 Monsieur Lecoq. By Gaboriau. Vol. II. 20 

27 Vanity Fair. By William M. Thackeray 20 

28 Ivanhoe. By Sir Walter Scott 20 

29 Beauty’s Daughters. The Duchess ” 20 

30 Faith and Unfaith. By ‘‘The Duchess” 20 

31 Middlemarch. By George Eliot 20 

32 The Land Leaguers. Ahthony Trollope 20 

33 The Cliqme of Gold. By Emile Gaboriau 20 

34 Daniel Deronda. By" George Eliot ... 30 

35 Lady Audley’s Secret, Miss Braddon 20 

36 Adam Bede. By George Eliot 20 

37 Nicholas Nickleby. By Charles Dickens 30 

38 The Widow Leroiige. By Gaboriau. . 20 

39 In Silk Attire. By William Black. ... ... 20 

40 The Last Days of Pompeii. By Sir E. 

Bulwer Ly tton 20 

41 Oliver Twist. By Charles Dickens .... 20 

42 Romola. By George Eliot 20 


43 The Mystery of Orcival. Gaboriau. ... 20 

44 Macleod of Dare. By William Black.. 20 

45 A Little Pilgrim. By Mrs. Oliphant... 10 

46 Very Hard Cash. By Charles Reade. . 20 

47 Altiora Peto. By Laurence Oliphant. . 20 

48 Thicker Than Water. By James Pay n. 20 

49 That Beautiful Wretch. By Black. . . ^ 

50 The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton. 


By William Black 20 

51 Dora Thorne. By the Author of ‘‘ Her 

Mother’s Sin” 20 

52 The New Magdalen. By Wilkie Collins. 20 

.53 The Story of Ida. By Francesca 10 

54 A Broken Wedding-Ring. By the Au- 
thor of ‘‘Dora Thorne”... 20 

.55 The Three Guardsmen. By Dumas. ... 20 

56 Phantom Fortune. Miss Braddon.... 20 

57 Shirley. By Charlotte Bront6 20 


NO. PRICE. 

58 By the Gate of the Sea. D. C. Murray 10 

59 Vice Versa. By F. Anstey 20 

60 The Last of the Mohicans. Cooper.. 20 

61 Charlotte Temple. By Mrs. Rowson. 10 

62 The Executor, Mrs. Alexander. . 20 

63 The Spy. By J. Fenimore Cooper. . . 20 

64 A Maiden Fair. By Charles Gibbon.. 10 

65 Back to the Old Home. By M. C. Hay 10 

66 The Romance of a Poor Young Man. 


By Octave Feuillet ;... 10 

67 Lorna Doone. By R. D. Blackmore. . 30 

68 A Queen Amongst Women. By the 

Author of “ Dora Thorne 10 

69 Madolin’s Lover, By the Author of 

“Dora Thorne” 20 

70 White Wings. By William Black ... . 20 

71 A Struggle for Fame. Mrs. Riddell,. 20 

72 Old Myddelton’s Money. By M. C. Hay 20 

73 Redeemed by Love. By the Author of 

“ Dora Thorne ”. 20 

74 Aurora Floyd. By Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

75 Twenty Years After. By Dumas... 20 

76 Wife in Name Only. By the Author of 

‘‘ Dora Thorhe ” 20 

77 A Tale of Two Cities, By Dickens. ... 20 

78 Madcap Violet. By William Black... 20 

79 Wedded and Parted. By the Author 

of ‘‘ Dora Thorne ” 10 

80 June. By Mrs. Forrester 20 


81 A Daughter of Heth. By Wm, Black. ‘20 

82 Sealed Lips, By F, Du Boisgobey. ,. 20 

83 A Strange Story. Bulwer Lytton 20 

84 Hard Times. By Charles Dickens. .. 20 

85 A Sea Queen. By W. Clark Russell.. 20 


86 Belinda. By Rhoda Broughton 20 

87 Dick Sand ; or, A Captain at Fifteen. 

By Jules Verne 20 

88 The Privateersman. Captain Marryat 20 

89 The Red Eric. By R. M. Ballantjme. 10 

90 Ernest Maltravers. Bulwer Lytton . . 20 

91 Barnaby Rudge. By Charles Dickens. 30 

92 Lord Lynne’s Choice. By the Author 

of ‘‘ Dora Thorne ” , 20 


93 Anthony Trollope’s Autobiography.. 20 

94 Little DoiTit. By Charles Dickens. . , 30 

95 The Fire Brigade. R. M. Ballantyne 10 

96 Erling the Bold. By R. M. Ballantyne 10 

97 All in a Garden Fair. Walter Besant. . 20 

98 A Woman-Hater. By Charles Reade.. 20 

99 Barbara’s History. A. B. Edwards. . . 20 

100 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas. By 

Jules Verne 20 

101 Second Thoughts. Rhoda Broughton ^ 

102 The Moonstone. By Wilkie Collins.. . 30 

103 Rose Fleming. By Dora Russell 10 

104 The Coral Pin. By F. Du Boisgobey. 30 

105 A Noble \y ife, By John Saunders.... 20 

106 Bleak House. By Charles Dickens, . . 40 

107 Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens. . 40 

108 The Cricket on the Hearth, and Doctor 


Marigold. By Charles Dickens. ... 10 

109 Little Loo. By W. Clark Russell 20 

110 Under the Red Flag. By Miss Braddon 10 

111 The Little School-Master Mark. By 

J. H. Shorthouse 10 

112 The Waters of Marali. By John Hill 20 


(This List is Contiuiied on Third Page of Cover.) 


The Way of the World. 


By DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY. 



NEW YORK: 


GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER, 


17 TO 27 Vandewateb Street. 


1 




“ THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 


CHAPTER I. 

A YOUNG man was leaving home and the widowed mother who 
had made the shabby house homely. He was a very small young 
man in stature, but rather above the average height in courage, and 
he believed in himself profoundly. He had as yet failed to decide 
about the future, except in a general way, and only time could tell 
whether he would be a London editor, prime minister, or lord 
chief justice. He was a very small young man indeed, but his 
hair rose high above a clever -looking face and a compact big head, 
and his carriage did what it could to atone for the brevity of his 
figure. He had eyes of singular keenness, but no depth, and he 
faced the world with a heart full of pluck and cheek and self-im- 
portance. What with his aspect of alert impudence and courage, 
his exceeding smallness of body and the upstanding hair which 
crowned his head like the cropped comb of a fighting cock, he was 
prodigiously like a bantam. 

A dingy room in a dingy house was the scene of the only farewell 
the small young man had to offer. The widowed mother was as 
faded as the furniture, and her drooping air contrasted strangely 
with the fearless promise of success which was blazoned on her son’s 
face and figure. There was a musty smell in the room — traceable 
to the little front shop on which it opened, where the packets of 
haberdashery on the skimpy shelves had somehow a fatal look of 
never being untied. The gauze of the smartest cap in the widow’s 
window had lost its crispness, and its artificial flowers had reached 
an artificial autumn, and looked bedraggled and forlorn. The very 
painted letters above the window seemed to have faded out of shame- 
facedness, and announced the name they spelled in a sort of husky 
lettered whisper. Mrs. Amelia was the name painted on the wrinkled 
scrap of boarding over the shop window, and Mrs. Amelia was the 
widowed mother who cried at the farewells of the very small young 
man, 

“ Don’t take on, mother,” he said, in a crisp, loud voice. “ Ten 
shillings a week will be a help to you, and I can afford that. I can 
live on thirty. And whatever increase of salary I get, you profit by 
it; that’s a promise. I shall always send a quarter of my income 
home.” 

” You’re a good son, William,” said the widow, drying her eyes 
— vainly just yet. 


4 ‘'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

“ I mean to be,” said William alertly. 

” But you don’t seem sorry to leave home,” pursued the widow. 

” Sorry?” said the crisp young man. Of course not. Why 
should I be sorry at having a chance to help myself and mend your 
circumstances? I should deserve to be kicked if I pretended to be 
sorry.” 

“You were born and bred in the house, William,” mourned his 
mother. 

“1 certainly did labor under those disadvantages,” the 5^11 ng 
man answered. His attitude and the expression of his face showed 
how much he approved of this retort. 

“You might be sorry at leaving it, poor as it is,” said the mother. 

“ I might,” returned the young man, “ if I were a cat, and capa- 
ble of contracting unreasonable affections for localities. But, being 
blessed with brains, I’m not sorry; and, having a conscience, 1 can’t 
pretend to be. ” 

Thus early in life had Mr. William Amelia learned to despise 
senliment. Now the widowed mother would have liked to see a 
little sentiment infused into his leave-takings. It would have soft- 
ened the pang of parting if he could have left her a little tenderly. 
He was a peju’l among sons and had never neglected his dut}^ She 
knew how clever he was, and she knew that he had comnum sense 
on his side. But a mother’s heart is an exigent foolish thing, and 
somehow common sense is cold comfort for it. 

“ It’s worth while, William,” said the faded woman, whose eyes 
were red with crjdng, “ it’s worth while to have some love for a 
place where you’ve lived for two-and-twenty years, even if the place 
is shabby.” 

“ It’s worth while, mother,” he answered with unshaken cheer- 
fulness, “ to have a definite sense of duty to one’s self and one’s own 
people. I can’t put myself into a graceful attitude and sing ‘ My 
humble home, farewell;’ but I can make forty shillings a week, anid 
send you ten. If I loved the place I don’t suppose I should leave it. ’ ’ 

“ But you’re leaving me as well, William,” said the widow, with 
her apron at her eyes again. 

“ That’s a different thing,” said the young man briskly. “ If an 
affection is worth anything, it’s puactical. I’m not going to cry 
at leaving,” and he looked singularly unlike that; “ but I’m going 
to do my duty when I’m gone, ’the proof of the pudding is the 
eating of it. Good-by, mother.” 

The small young man’s voice was loud and hard, and whenever 
he spoke and whatever he said, there was an air of self -appro vin^^- 
smartness about him. ^ 

“ Good-by, William,” said his mother, embracing him. “God 
bless you!” 

“ God bless you,” returned the young man, alert and business- 
like — as a shop- walker calls “ Number six — forward!” 

Small as he was he looked too big for his portmanteau, assuming 
it to contain, as it did, his whole possessions. He was eminently 
respectable in aspect, though his tidy tweed suit and his silk hat 
had alike been brushed too often to retain their freshness. Every 
barleycorn of his figure had its full advantage as he walked, and in 
the clearer light of the streets it was noticeable that the constant tuck 


5 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’^ 

ed-up carriage of liis head had creased his cheeks into a line whicli 
ran below the chin, and promised, if ever he should grow stout, to 
make that feature double. 

Courage and resolution are fine things, and the world would be a 
poor place without them. The young man had them in plenty; but 
alter all the world is a big place, and he was such a very small 
young man that there was some sense of disproportion in the coming- 
battle. And yet, he was really almost as clever as he thought him- 
self, and liis life sermon on the great Gospel of Getting-On was 
likely to be effective. He was as &en as a razor and about as sym- 
pathetic. As the result of rare good health and a perfect self- 
opinion, he was almost always cheerful, though his cheerfulness was 
sterile and comforted the world no more than the play of light on 
an icicle. There is no denying that he was well furnished for the 
progress of a pilgrim whose ultimate bright goal was a booth in 
Vanity Fair. 

Mr. Amelia was a member of the Fourth Estate, [n less lofty 
language a newspaper reporter. It is probable that no other busi- 
ness or profession includes within its ranks so varied an array of 
mental endowments. There are men in that line of life too stupid 
to be bricklayers, and there are men of surprising learning and the 
keenest acumen. IMo other profession offers such a range of high 
and low employment. The range includes the penny weekly sheet 
issued at Mudhole-cum-Podger and the daily prints of the great 
cities. The reporter at Mudhole-cum-Podger is sometimes below 
his business, even there, and the reporter of the great town or city is 
often more than master of his work, hard and responsible as it may 
be. He blossoms in due time into the able editor, he reads for the 
Bar and becomes a famous pleader, he sits on the woolsack, he 
writes books and is famous all over thewoild. His origin as reporter 
is almost a proof of want of riches to begin with. If his parents 
had had money he would have gone into some recognized profes- 
sion, or would at least have been bound apprentice. Newspaper 
reporting is a business in which you may begin very low down in- 
deed. That you cannot spell is scarcely a bar against your aspira- 
tions. And through it, and out of it, you can rise to just such 
heights as your mental endowments fit you to stand on. ignorance 
and incapacity need hardly starve in it. Respectable mediocrity can 
flourish in it, and a man with brains and resolution can make it a 
stepping-stone to greatness. 

Mr. William Amelia entered at the gates of journalism because 
they were opened tQ him when other avenues to the laud of inde- 
pendent bread and water were closed, but he w^as not long at the 
business without reflecting on the chances that lay within it. It 
was his first ambition to become a parliamentary reporter. What 
might come when that desire was fulfilled he could not tell. He 
• would at least have planted both feet on the l)Ottom rung of a ladder 
which had been known already to reach the very zenith of Fame’s 
lirmament. Others had mounted as high as the ladder led them. 
VVliy not he? 

He was bound southward, to a country town a hundred miles 
from his birthplace, and geographically as well as professionally he 
made a stride toward Loudon, 


6 


"'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

A youn" man making a new departure in life may be excused if 
he looks kindly on the dreams Hope spreads before him. If Mr. 
William Amelia, in his mind’s eye, saw himself occupying positions 
which were unlikely for him, he was less mistaken in his estimate 
of himself than many men have been before him. 

He had never been remarkable for a humble bearing and having 
just administered a severe rebuke to the prime minister from his 
own independent seat below the gangway in a fancy House of Com- 
mons he was none the more likely to look submissive now, as he 
stepped from his third-class compartment to the platform. 

“ Can you direct me to the office of the ‘ Whig ’?” 

He put the question to a porter in tones so crisp and clear that 
an elderly man standing at the little bookstall a dozen yards away 
turned to look at him, and after a second’s pause advanced. 

“ Excuse me if am mistaken,” said the stranger. “ Have 1 the 
pleasure of speaking to Mr. Amelia?” 

“ If it is a pleasure,” said the very small young man, “ you en- 
joy it.” 

The elderly stranger smiled, languidly and innocently, like a tired 
infant. His dress was threadbare and a little neglected; his hair 
long, ragged, and inclining to ^ay. 

“My name,” he said, “ is Rider — John Hawkes Rider. I am 
the editor of the ‘ Whig.’ ” There was a mighty contrast between 
the editor and the new chief reporter. The editor was a man of evi- 
dent weak refinement. It was obvious that he had never been a 
gentleman. Probably he had been a compositor with a taste for 
reading— local rumors said as much — and a gradual way had been 
opened for him by the hand of friendly circumstance. He was not 
at all like the sort of man who makes his own circumstances. 
“ When 1 heard you asking for the office,” he said, “ 1 thought you 
might be Mr, Amelia. ” His two thumbs went searching irresolutely 
in his waistcoat pockets as he spoke. “ I’m afraid,” he said by- 
and-by, “ that I haven’t a card. But that doesn’t matter.” 

“ A stock trick,” said Mr. Amelia to himself with a smile. “ He 
says that to everybody.” 

“ Would you like to see the office?” asked the editor. “You 
must be tired. Allow me to carry your bag. ” 

Mr. Amelia allowed him, and gave the reins to his own reflections. 

The new chief reporter of the “ Gallowbay Whig ” had not read 
Shelley — he was no great lover of verse— but he knew from obser- 
vation that man looks before and after, and pines for what is not. 
He knew that strength and cunniug are useful weapons in life’s 
battle-field, and he did not expect to receive quarter or intend to 
give it. The fancy which showed him his own figure at the editorial 
desk might be premature without being ridiculous. His own com- 
pact big head was compactly filled with brains, and he knew it; he 
overflowed with energy and vitality; under his leadership the 
“ Whig ” might become a live organ of public opinion instead of* 
the limp invertebrate thing he knew it. 

“This is the office, Mr. Amelia,” said the editor; “walk in.” 
He set the portmanteau down before the stationer’s counter, and 1^ 
the way upstairs into an untidy and dreary room with a tall desk, 
a couple of tall stools, a table, and two broken chairs for sole furni- 


^'THE WAY OF THE >V0RLD/’ 7 

ture. Lounging against the tall desk were two young men, of whom 
one looked respectable and dull and one seedy and clever, 

“This,” said the editor, indicating the respectable young man, 
“ is Mr. Flinch, our second reporter, and this,” indicating the seedy 
one, “ is Mr. Kyrle Maddox, our junior. This is Mr. Amelia, 
gentleman, our chief of staft.” He gave something of a humorous 
pomposity to this announcement, and rubbed his hands with the air 
of a man who is pleased with his own pleasantry. The seedy junior 
laid down a briar-root pipe and shook hands with Mr. Amelia. The 
respectable second followed suit, though he looked as if the salute 
went against the grain with him. “ This,” said the editor, pushing 
open a creaking door, “ is my own den,” 

The word described the apartment fairly. Mr. Amelia peered 
through the doorway and nodded. 

“ The thunderbolt manufactory?” he said. 

“We thunder very mildly here,” responded the editor, groping 
iiTesolutely at his waistcoat pockets with his thumbs. “ There is 
very little party-feeling in Gallowbay.” 

“ That’s rather a pity, isn’t it?” asked Mr. Amelia. 

“ A pity? ■ Surely not,” said the mild editor, taking off his hat 
and polishing his head with a crimson cotton handkerchief. “ Lib- 
eral and Tory, lamb and lion, lie down together here. The county 
papers never touch politics except at election times, and then they 
only recommend their seveial candidates. The ‘ Independent ’ is 
the Tory journal in Gallowbay, but it and the ‘ Whig ’ have nothing 
to quarrel about.” 

Mr. Amelia nodded once or twice, but made no verbal response. 
If the management of the “ Whig ” should ever come into his hands, 
he thought he could find reasons enough for warfare. The seedy 
young man had resumed his pipe, and was smoking like a furnace. 

“I’m glad you’ve turned up,” said he, addressing the new chief. 
“Flinch and I have been filthily overworked since Homer left. 
Haven’t we, Mr. Rider? You’ll find us both a little sore at first. 
Flinch thinks he ought to have been chief — not that he’s fit for it, 
but human vanity’s a comprehensive thing — and I cei-tainly ought to 
have been second.” 

Mr. Flinch accepted this in sulky silence, the mild editor chuckled, 
and Mr, Amelia looked inquiringly at the seedy junior. 

“ That was the proprietor’s affair, not mine,” said the editor, de- 
fensively. 

“ We know that, sir,” said the junior, laughing. 

The whole condition of things in the “Whig” office was evi- 
dently, to Mr. Amelia’s fancy, subversive of discipline. An editor 
who voluntarily acted as porter on his first introduction to a subor- 
dinate, and who allowed himself to be addressed with familiarity by 
the junior member of his staff, was very far removed from Mr. 
Amelia’s ideas of what an editor should be. It was plmn that the 
junior reporter had been bred in a very bad school. 

“ We’re all here together,” said that )^oung gentleman, with blun- 
dering friendliness, ‘ ‘ and I don’t think we can do better than go round 
to the ‘ Cow ’ and have a di’ink on the strength of it. Not more 
than others I deserve, yet God has given me more. I have half a 


8 


^^THE WAY OF THE WOELD. 


5? 


crown, and it’s pay-day to morrow. Y’^ou’ll come along, Mr. 
Amelia?” 

” No, thank you,” said Mr. Amelia, coldly. 

” You don’t drink?” asked the junior. 

” Unless I am thirsty,” responded the new chief in his own crisp 
way. 

” Ah!” said the junior; “ I couldn’t afford that. I’m thirsty too 
often.” 

The inoffensive editor laughed at the junior’s repartee, but catch- 
ing sight of the grave disapproval expressed in Mr. Amelia’s face, 
he himself became grave, and expressed a half apology in the feeble 
i chafing of his hands. 

1 “it might be convenient, sir,” said the chief, “if Mr. Flinch 
would go with me through an account of the routine work at once. ” 

“Certainly, if you wish it,” said the editor. “Mr. Flinch.” 
The speaker waved an uncertain right hand with a vaguely discon- 
certed air, and Mr. Flinch produced a dog’s-eared diary, labeled 
“ Engagement Book,” and opened it before his superior officer. 

“ A glass of beer, Mr. Rider?” said the junior, inquiringly. 

“ Well,” said the editor, still vaguely disconcerted, “ while Mr. 
I’linch explains — ” 

The junior opened the door and Mr. Rider edged through it. Mr. 
Maddox nodded amicably in answer to Mr. Amelia’s uplifted gaze, 
and followed his editor. Mr. Amelia turned his eyes back to the 
pages of the dog’s-eared diary, and began his work in cold scorn. 
He had been fifth reporter on a big daily journal in the north, and 
he knew what discipline ought to be. 

Mr. Rider and the junior reporter had been absent for perhaps a 
quarter of an hour, when Mr. Amelia heard a great rush upon the 
stairs without, and the seedy youth reappeared out of breath, but 
still clinging to his pipe and smoking, though with difficulty. Close 
upon his heels came the editor, also out of breath, and upon the 
countenance of each was an expression of high excitement. 

“A most extraordinary event has happened,” said Mr. Rider, 
gaspingly. “A thing quite outside the ordinary routine.” Mr. 
Amelia looked keen inquiry, but said nothing. “I shall want to 
bend all the forces of the office to the task,” pursued Mr. Rider, 
when he had partially recovered breath. “ You, Mr. Amelia, will 
oblige me by going to the ‘ Windgall Arms,’ where you will inquire 
for Mr. Ragshaw. Give Mr. Amelia a note-book and a pencil, Mr. 
Flinch. Mr. Ragshaw will tell you all he knows, I have no doubt. 
You will inquire about the newly-discovered heir to the Gallowbay 
estate — Mr. Bolsover Kimberley. 1 shall seek a personal interview 
with Mr. Kimberley. You, Mr. Maddox, can accompany me, and 
take a note of the conversaiion. You, Mr. Flinch, had better walk 
up to the Woodlands and ask to see Mr. Shceney — Mr. Clarence G. 
Sheeney — who will tell you all about the enhanced value of the 
estates.” 

“ Perhaps,” said Mr. Amelia, “ I had better know something of 
the matter beforehand.” 

“Yes,” returned editor; “ it will be as well. The late owner of 
the Gallowbay estates was a minor, and an orphan. He had no 
known relatives, and was believed to be the last of his line, the sur- 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 9 

vivor of his whole race. Messrs. Begg, Batter, and Bagg, solicitors, 
have discovered a perfect title to the estates. It is vested in the per- 
son of Mr. Boisover Kimberley, who was a solicitor’s clerk this 
morning, at a salary, I should say, of thirty shillings a week. This 
evening he is worth at least a million and a quarter sterling.” 

Mr. Rider took off his hat and polished his head with the crimson 
cotton handkerchief, glancing from one to another of his staff with 
an almost bewildered air. 

” A million and a quarter sterling, gentlemen,” he repeated. “ A 
million and a quarter sterling.” 

” Tidy lump of money, isn’t it?” said the junior. 

” If ah’d got it,” said Mr. Flinch, ” ah’d travel.” 

“To the local asylum, ” said the junior. “ Flinch’ s intellect,” 
he added,, with an explanatory manner, “is constructed to bear a 
pressure of one shilling a week to the square inch. A thirteen 
penny pressure would burst it.” 

“Mr. Maddox,” said the editor, mildly, “you are ungenerous. 
It has always seemed to me as unmanly to say a cruel clever thing 
to a man who has no faculty of repartee as it would be to hit a man 
with his hands tied.” 

“ Or to kick a cripple,” returned the junior. “I’m sure I beg 
your pardon, Flinch. Not that he knows why, sir, and I’m sure he 
doesn’t mind. Do you. Flinch?” 

“ Ah don’t mind,” returned Mr. Flinch, surlily, “You can say 
what you like abaht me.” 

Mr. Amelia looked sharply from Flinch to Maddox, and from 
Maddox to Rider, taking mental stock of the three. Flinch was 
obviously a dullard. Rider was a child, and a very foolish one. 
Maddox might have some promise in him apart from the bar-loung- 
ing fear, but his nails were dirty, his clothes dusty and disordered, 
his boots unblackened and broken, and his linen and his hair were 
monuments to neglect. Mr. Amelia resolved that Maddox should 
be polished. It did not suit him to have a junior so disreputable in 
aspect. The disreputability w^ould be reflected back upon himself. 
“Excuse me,” he said, “for breaking in on your onversation, 
but since there is work to be done might it not be as well to do it? 
Perhaps Mr. Flinch will direct me to the ‘ Windgall Arms.’ ” 

“We will meet here and compare notes before anything is writ- 
ten,” said the editor. “ I can show you to the Arms, Mr. Amelia. 
My business lies there as well as yours. On second thoughts. Mr. 
Amelia, I fancy that it will be more agreeable to Mr. Kimberley in 
his altered position to encounter a stranger than to meet one who 
knew him in his humbler sphere. 1 think that will be a little more 
thoughtful — more considerate.” 

He put this doubtfully, as if inviting Mr. Amelia’s opinion. 

“ As you please, sir,” returned the new chief. 

“ I think,” said the editor again, “ it will be a little more consid- 
erate. Mr. Kimberley is not a — a self-possessed gentleman, and I 
knew him in less fortunate days, and perhaps the remembrance of 
that fact might embarass him. Our functions,” he added, with an 
uncertain smile, “ are a little inquisitorial, Mr. Amelia, and we nat- 
urally like to make them as little unpleasant as possible.” Mr. 
Amelia returning no answer to this doctrine other than that conveyed 


10 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


?> 

in a crisp nod which might mean either assent or its opposite, the 
editor once more became vaguely disconcerted, and groped in his 
pockets without apparent purpose. “ You will ask Mr. Kimberley 
to furnish you with the chief facts of his career, Mr, Amelia, and 
his intentions for the future. I am afraid you will find him a little 
embarrassed at first,” 

With this he edged himself from the room, and the others fol- 
lowed. Mr. Flinch turned up the street to the right and the other 
three to the left, Mr Amelia wonderfully erect and self-important, 
the editor walking apologetically on a level with him, and the junior 
with his hands in his pockets and pipe in mouth bringing up the 
rear. 


CHAPTER II. 

Ip you are not anybody in particular— and the chances are that 
you are not — you are invited to ask yourself one question before 
pursuing this history. How do you think you would feel if you 
suddenly became somebody very particular indeed? A little embar- 
rassed, do you think? I fancy so. 

Your sympathies are requested for Mr. Bolsover Kimberley, a 
gentleman embarrassed beyond measure. Perhaps you may be better 
able to sympathize with him when you know more particularly who 
he was and how he suffered. 

There was a shadowy unsubstantial-seeming commodore in the 
Kimberley family legends. This commodore had fought some- 
where, and was reported to have secured a good handful of prize- 
money. He had bought land, so the legend ran, and had settled on 
it and flourished exceedingly. Mr. Bolsover Kimberley used some- 
times to speak of his ancestor, the commodore. Bolsover’s father 
had used the phrase before him, and it was generally conceded that 
it was a reputable sort of thing to have had a commodore in the 
family. 

Bolsover began life in canary-colored stockings, blue small-clothes, 
and a tail-coat which touched his heels as he walked, a pensioner on 
the bounty of one Harvard, who fiourished in the days of Elizabeth, 
and left an annual sum of money for the education of twelve poor 
boys, and their clothing according to a design held to be reputable 
in his own day. So Kimberley’s earliest memories were of the jeers 
of the unsympathetic, and (being a boy of great natural meekness 
and indisposed to popular notice) he suffered grievously through all 
his school years because of that absurd livery. The other eleven, 
his compeers, could fight, and being animated by that spirit of 
brotherhood which is sometimes the offspring of misfortune, they 
were formidable enough to be left alone. But Bolsover could not 
fight, and was therefore a Pariah among those who should have 
been his chosen. The history of the chivyings of Kimberley was 
varied and prolonged enough to furnish forth an epic. His tortures 
lasted six years, and when he was set free from them and trans- 
planted to a solicitor’s ofiSce, his native shyness and cowardice were 
fixed in him for life. 

His earlier functions in the solicitor’s office were to sweep out the 
rooms, light the fires and run on eiTands; but in the fullness of time 


^‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD/* 11 

he became a clerk. He regarded this as the beginning of life in 
earnest, but he seemed likely to live to the end of his days in the 
pursuit of labors no more profitable or pretentious. 

^ He was now thirty-five years of age, and honoraiy secretary to a 
Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society. He was meek and had 
no features to speak of. His hair was unassuming and his whiskers 
were too shy to curl. His eyebrows — always a little elevated — bore 
in their troubled curve a nervous apology, “ 1 hope 1 don’t intrude. ” 

Sometimes at friendly tea-drinkings, when, save himself, there 
were only ladies present, he could b^e moved to sing, “ 1 have a 
silent Sorrow here,” ” She never told her Love,” and “ The Lass 
of Richmond Hill ” — these were his favorite ditties. Their char- 
acter and his single estate encouraged the belief that he was con- 
sumed by a hopeless and unspoken passion. This conjecture, like 
some stories of the old school, was founded upon fact. 

. Poor Bolsover burned at times to be rid of his secret, but he felt 
that he would have been thought no better than a madman if it had 
once been known. It was an undeniable madness in a solicitor’s 
clerk even to dream of loving the Lady Ella Santerre. You may 
fancy — and fancy is not greatly exercised to compass the exertion — 
the sentiments which would have filled the girl’s heart had she 
known. Bolsover never troubled himself with accusations against 
Fate, because no shadow of Hope’s wing ever came within measur- 
able distance of him. He knew perfectly well what a fool he was, 
but he was in love for all that. 

A cat may look at a king. A solicitor’s clerk may love an earl’s 
daughter. But he is surely wise to hold his tongue about it, if a 
creature guilty of so astonishing a folly can be said to be wise at all. 

On the morning of that day on which Mr. Amelia arrived in Gal- 
lowbay, Bolsover was seated in a little room with a dingy red desk, 
a dingy red door, and a cobwebbed skylight. A dusty window 
showed him nothing — when he looked up from the deed he was 
laboriously engrossing — but a blank wall baking in the dreary and 
oppressive sunshine. Suddenly a knock sounded on the dingy red 
door, and the clerk, without looking up from his work, pulled a cord, 
and cried “ Come in.” The person who had knocked entered, and 
illumined the place — Mr. Ragshaw, senior clerk to Messrs. Begg, 
Batter, and Bagg, the leading firm of solicitors in the county town. 
Mr. Ragshaw ’s employers mingled with the county people almost 
on terms of equality, and Mr. Ragshaw — almost on terms of equality 
— associated with his employers. He was, therefore, a person of 
some distinction, and his manner displayed a consciousness of the 
fact, not too obtrusive. His taste in dress was undeniable. The 
burning weather justified a departure from the soberer tints of British 
fashion, and he was attired in trousers of a large plaid, a buff waist- 
coat, a white hat, a drab dust overcoat thrown open, and a morning 
coat of blue cloth with a rose in his buttonhole. He displayed cuffs 
and a shirt collar besprinkled with dog’s heads in pink. He wore 
cloth boots and white gaiters, and on his breast glittered an opales- 
cent bulb the size of a bronze halfpenny, backed by a wide expanse 
of scarlet scarf. 

Bolsover received his guest with a befitting reverence. He was 
quite amazed with the gorgeous creature’s condescension when Mr. 


12 ‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

Ragsliaw removed liis white hat, and, advancing, proffered liis right 
hand. 

“My dear Mr. Kimberley,” said Mr. Ragshaw, “ allow me the 
honor of shaking hands with you. Permit me, sir, to congratulate 
you. 1 believe that 1 am the first bearer of good news.” 

Mr. Kimberley held his tongue and turned pale. 

“ You have doubtless, sir,” said Mr. Ragshaw, resuming, “ heard 
frequent mention of what is known as the Gallowbay Estate?” 

Bolsover waved his hand toward the deed he had been engrossing 
a minute before. It related to a portion of the property his visitor 
had mentioned. Mr. Ragshaw cast an eye about it and then ele- 
vated his eyebrows with an expression of genteel surprise. 

“ At its northern boundary,” he continued, “ it adjoins Shoulder- 
shott Park, the estate of Lord Windgall. It is bounded on the south 
by the High Street, and includes the whole of the northern side of 
that thoroughfare. On the west it includes the foreshore, and on 
the east its boundaries are somewhat more intricate. The leases 
have all fallen in during the lifetime of its late owner.” 

Bolsover, paler than before, nodded to signify attention, but still 
said nothing. 

“ My firm, sir,” pursued the splendid creature, “ represented the 
trustees of me late owner, who inherited the estate in early infancy. 
He died three months ago at the age of twenty, leaving no known 
relatives. We instituted a search, sir, which resulted in the dis- 
covery of an indisputable title to the estate. Permit me to congratu- 
late you, sir — the estate is yours.” 

Bolsover Kimberley laid his hands on the high stool from which he 
had recently arisen, and held it to steady himself. He gasped, and 
his voice was harsh. 

“ How much?” 

“The estate, sir,” said Mr. Ragshaw, “has almost trebled in 
value during the long minority of the deceased, and it is now ap- 
proximately valued at forty-seven thousand per annum.” 

The owner of the Gallowbay Estate lurched forward and fell over 
, the high stool in a dead faint. The senior clerk of Begg, Batter, 
and Bagg caught him by the shoulders, held him up, and straight- 
ened him. 

The family belief in the existence of the commodore was justified. 
But so far as the new-made millionaire had known he had no kith 
or kin in the world, and he had never expected anybody to lea re him 
anything. In the fogotten language of the Fistic Ring, he was hit 
all abroad, knocked out of time by this intelligence. 

Mr. Ragshaw’s attentions restored him to his senses, and he drank 
a little w'ater and sobbed hystericall}^ 

When he had recovered sufiiciently to understand what had hap- 
pened, he arose weakly from the one office chair, took off his office 
coat, rolled it up neatly, and put it in his desk. He next detached 
the desk key from the ring on which it kept company with his 
latch-key and the key of his chest of drawers. Then he put on his 
walking-coat and his hat, and went out, leaving the unfinished deed 
behind him with the first syllable of the word “ consideration ” 
staring at the waste of unwritten parchment which lay beyond it, 
IMr. Ihigshaw accompanied him, writhing his own features into an 


^^THE WAY OP THE AVORLD/^ 13 

expression of the deepest sympathy, as the owner of the Gallowhay 
Estate, still much shaken, walked slowlj'' along the shady side of the 
street. 

“Don’t you think, Mr. Kimberley,” asked 3Ir. Ragshaw with 
profound respect, “ that a little something — ” 

They were outside the “ Windgall Arms,” and Kimberley under- 
stood the half- spoken query. 

“ Why, yes, sir,” said the millionaire, “ but 1 never keep it in the 
’ouse, and having had to pay a tailor’s bill this week, I don’t hap- 
pen — ” 

Mr, Ragshaw spoke with genuine emotion. 

“My dear sir, allow me!” He ushered Mr. Kimberley through 
the portal. 

“ Ow de do, Kimberley?” said the host, who lounged in the cool 
shadow of the doorway with a cigar between his lips. 

Mr, Ragshaw eyed the landlord with some severity. 

“ Show us into a private room, if you please,” he said; “and 
bring up a bottle of cham. Do you keep Heidsieck’s monopoly? 
All right. Let’s have a bottle, and a couple of your best weeds. ” 

“ Certainly, gentlemen,” said the host. There was something in 
Ragshaw ’s maimerwhich overawed him, and Ragshaw was, so defer- 
ential to Kimberley that the host knew not what to think 'bf it. 

“There’s a swell upstairs,” he told his wife, “as is treating 
young Kimberley to champagne and cigars. ’ ’ 

“ 1 don’t want the young man ill on my premises,” said the Grey 
Mare, who was the better horse. She had found the money to pur- 
chase stock and goodwill when she and the landlord married. 

“ It’s a queer start,” said the landlord. “ The man’s a swell, 
there’s no doubt o’ that, and yet he’s a bowing and scraping to that 
Kimberley as if he was a lord,” 

The landlady glided away to listen, and the conversation now to 
be recorded was public property before closing time. 

“ Are you strong enough to listen to the rest, sir?” asked Rag- 
shaw in tones of delicate sympathy. 

“Yes,” said the landed proprietor. 

“ There is, of course, a large sum of money, the product of the 
rents of the estate during the long minority of the deceased. It has 
been invested by the trustees in various ways, and it represents, in 
round figures, a quarter of a million.” 

The listening landlady gasped at the question which followed. 

“ Does that, ” said Kimberley feebly, “ does that — belong — tome?” 

“ Yes, sir; most undoubtedly, sir,” responded Mr, Ragshaw. 

“ When shall 1 — have it?” 

“You enter, sir, upon immediate possession of the whole prop- 
erty. My firm has given instructions to our bankers to honor your 
draft at sight, and 1 am instructed to hand you this clieck book. I 
need not say, sir, that I am delighted to be honored with such a 
commission, sir.” 

“ Oh, dear me,” said the millionaire, and taking the check-book 
he sat crushed. 

“ Pray permit me, sir.” Mr. Ragshaw filled up Bolsover’s half- 
empty glass and replenished his own with an air of homage. Tlie 
landlady arose from her place and went gliding down the stairs. 


14 


^‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


Curiosity was still strong in her, but she was faint and needed sup- 
port before she could endure further. 

“ George,” she said to the landlord, “ give me a little drop of 
brandy. I’m in such a twitter you might knock me down with a 
feather, Now don’t you ask me no questions, for 1 can’t stop to 
answer ’em.” 

” If 1 can be of service to you in any capacity, Mr. Kimberlev,” 
Ragshaw began, just as she resumed her ix)st, “ I am instructed to 
place myself entirely in your hands for a day, or even two. About 
your temporary abode for a day or two, sir? Will it be convenient 
for you to stay here?” 

” Ye-es,” said Kimberley, but the idea more than half -frightened 
him. 

” Any little addition, sir,” hinted Mr. Ragshaw, with an almost 
ladylike delicacy of demeanor, “ any little addition to your — ward- 
robe, sir?” 

“ I’ve got another suit at home,” returned Kimberley, with much 
dubiety. 

“ There is a position to maintain, sir,” said Ragshaw, ‘‘ if I may 
respectfully mention it.” 

Poor Kimberley took a sip at his champagne. He was unused to 
the beverage, and he began to experience a strange wild glow, an un- 
accustomed half hysterical exultation; so that he liardlv knew 
whether to laugh or cry, and was on the point of doing both to- 
gether. 

“There is something in what you say, sir,” he returned. It 
crossed him, with a feminine sense of the loveliness of bright attire, 
that he might even dress like Ragshaw, if he chose. He had never 
longed for finery. In his meager, unambitious way, he had been 
contented with his lot, and what he could not hope for he never 
dared to wish for. But now the egregious plaid of Ragshaw ’s 
trousei-s, his buff waistcoaV^ the opalescent bulb on his breast, his 
yellow dog-skin gloves, and all his other outrageous sartorial gay- 
eties, might even be shared by Kimberle}^ and the late quill-driver’s 
weak little head swam with the first thought of personal vanity 
which had ever assailed it. 

“ Wilkins in the High Street, sir,” suggested Mr. Ragshaw, “ is 
a very passable tailor. Shall I send for him, sir? Or would you 
prefer to employ a man in town?” Kimberley made no response. 
“ Perhaps Wilkins will do at present, sir? He is a tenant of your 
own.” Kimberley was still silent. “You will be expected, sir, to 
entourage local trade a little, if I may venture to suggest it.” 

“ Y^s,” said Kimberley, tremulously. “ We’ll go presently.” 

“ Oh, dear no, sir,” returned Ragshaw, blending instructions with 
worship, as a prince’s preceptor might. , “ That would never do, 
sir. We will send for Wilkins, sir.” 

He rang the bell, and the landlady, having noiselessly retired, 
came up with a bustle, and answered the summons in person. 

“ Oblige me,” said Ragshaw, “by dispatching a messenger to 
Wilkins, the tailor in the High Street, requesting him to wait upon 
me here. 

The landlady, having received this command, retired to put it into 
execution. 


15 


^^THE AVAY OF TUE WOKLl)/’ 

“ Young Kimberley,” said the landlord, addressing a visitor, as 
she entered the bar, ” is upstairs with a swell as is standing fizz to 
him and the best cigars.” 

The visitor was Mr. Blandy, solicitor, a bald-headed man, with 
an angry, brandified complexion; no less a person than Mr. Kimber- 
ley’s eniployer. 

” Is he, begad?” said Mr. Blandy, with amazement. ” That’s a 
new move.” 

” ’Sh!” cried the landlady; for the solicitor’s voice was not only 
dogmatic but loud, and the door was open. ” Mr. Kimberley is 
proved to be the heir to the Gallowbay Estate.” 

The landlady had never enjoyed so supreme a triumph in her life. 
The recipient of the astonishing news fairly gaped at her. She told 
what she knew, but omitted to state the means by which she had 
acquired her information; and, as they listened, the solicitor and 
the landlord each surrendered his tumbler, and let fall the hand 
which had caressed it. 

” Who is it?” asked the solicitor, who was the first to recover. 
“ Who is with him?” 

” It’s a ginger-headed person.” said the landlord, ” with whiskers 
of the same, tallish and dress tip top.” 

“That’s Ragshaw fora fiver,” said Mr. Blandy. “ For a fiver 
it’s Ragshaw. Begg and Batter were agents for tlie trustees, and 
Ragshaw is their head man. God bless my soul. What a wind- 
fall. Well, there never was a man who deserved good fortune bet- 
ter. I have been honored by that young man’s presence in my office 
for twenty years, Burridge, and I say of him that he is worthy of 
his good fortune, and that he will be an ornament to any sphere 
into which it may please Providence to call him. You will remem- 
ber, Burridge, that 1 was the first to say so. As an honest man, 
Burridge, you will bear me out in that.” 

“ Certainly,” said Buiridge. “ As an old employer of the young 
man’s, 1 should say as you ought to be met with a sort of excep- 
tional favor, so to speak. I should think there could not be a fitter 
man than you, sir, to conduct the interests of the estate.” 

“For once in your life, George,” said the Grey Mare, “you’re 
talking sense. ” The landlord was sensibly elated by this modified 
compliment, and having sipped at his tumbler, he murmured with 
the contemplative look of an admitted judge of things: 

“ There is not, 1 should fancy, a fitter man anywhere.” 

Mr. Blandy felt that his host and hostess were people of sound 
judgment, and his own prospects brightened in the eftulgence of 
Kimberley’s magnificent fortunes. 

“ Wilkins, the tailor, is to be sent for at once,” said the landlady. 

“ I’ll step down myself,” replied the landlord, “ and bring him 
back with me. This ought to bring a bit of prawsperity to Gallow- 
bay, Mr. Blandy. The deceased owner being a minor, there’s been 
no money spent in the town off of that estate for nigh on fourteen, 
or may be fifteen years.” 

“ Kimberley,” said the solicitor, “ is a local man, and may be re- 
lied upon to promote local interests. 1 have some influence with 
him, some little influence, and you may rely upon me to use it.” 

“lam sure of that, sir,” said the landlady fervently; and Mr. 


16 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


jj 

Blandy felt, and, if he conld have managed it, would have looked, 
like a local public benefactor. 

“ liegg and Batter,” said Mr. Blandy, when the landlord had 
gone out, ‘’will doubtless do their best to retain a full control of 
the estates; but after an association which has extended over a score 
of years, an association uninterrupted by one unfriendly breeze, I 
do not think that Bolsover Kimberley is the man to throw over an 
old friend.” 

“ No, indeed, sir,” said the landlady. 

Meanwhile Kimberley and Ragshaw had started on a new conver- 
sational tack. 

“ 1 think,” said the new-made man of money with trembling lips, 
“that you gave me a notion that the estate adjoins Shouldershott 
Park?” 

He knew that well enough and had known it years ago, but he 
could not help drifting to the question. 

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Ragshaw, in respectful affirmation. “It 
was generally supposed,” he added, wdthout a guess of the tremor 
into which this statement would throw his companion, “ that the 
late proprietor of the estate would marry a daughter of Lord Wind- 
gall’s.” 

“ Lady Ella?” inquired Kimberley in a choking voice. 

“ Oh, dear no, sir,” responded Rag'shaw. “ Her sister, the Hon- 
orable Alice Louisa Santerre, who is four years younger. Only 
fifteen, 1 believe, sir.” 

“ That’s very young,” said Kimberley, trying to look as if he 
were discussing a matter which had no interest for him. 

“ It was understood, I believe, sir,” replied Ragshaw, with the 
manner of a man of fashion. “ These great families, sir, look upon 
marriage as a sort of affair of state. Lord W indgall is not a wealthy 
peer.” 

“ I never heard,” said Kimberley, with the champagne beating 
wildly in his head, “ that Lady Ella was engaged.” 

“ Well, as a matter of fact there never was an engagement,” said 
Ragshaw, who was as intimate with the affairs of the aristocracy as 
if he had been a reporter to a Society journal. “ But it was under- 
stood, X believe, that there was an attachment. A Mr. Clare — the 
Honorable Mr. Clare — a younger son of Lord Montacute’s. The par- 
ents, it was understood, were opposed on both sides.” 

“ Oh,” said Bolsover Kimberley, and for the time being said no 
more. But in the middle of a great auriferous glow, the spirit of 
Heidseck’s extra sec showed him the lovely face and figure of Lady 
Ella. And it was he himself who was kneeling at her feet. Then, 
at that amazing awful presumption, he awoke and groaned aloud 
with sudden shame, and Mr. Ragshaw jumped to his feet and 
stared at him across the table. 

“ Are you in pain, sir?” inquired Ragshaw, twisting his features 
to imply a sympathetic understanding. 

“ I don’t feel altogether comfortable,” said the millionaire. 

Mr. Ragshn w twisted his features anew, until his face was a mere 
mass of wrinkles. 

“ Perhaps, sir,” he suggested with profound respect, “you are 
not accustomed to tobacco.” 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 


17 

“ I take a pipe of an evening,” said Kimberley. ” It isn’t that. 
I’m better, thank you.” 

A knock at the door announced the arrival of the tailor. He had 
heard the news, and so ducked and gi-iuned at Kimberley that if the 
little man had been in full possession of his faculties he would have 
thought the tailor deranged. The patterns were spread out upon the 
table, and Kimberley, egged on by Ragshaw and the tradesman, 
found himself choosing an unheard-of number of samples and order- 
ing clothes enough to make dandies of half-a-dozen commercial 
travelers for a year. 

Ragshaw followed the tradesman from the room. 

“ It will be worth your while,” he said in an impressive whisper, 
“ to see that all those things have the real fashionable cut. It might 
pay you, sir, to engage a special man. Mr. Kimberley, as a Gal- 
lowbay man, will naturally wish to cultivate local interests, but he 
will need to be well served. You are not yet aware, perhaps he 
was sure the man was aware, but he wanted to know how the story 
had got abroad — “ of the change in Mr. Kimberley’s fortunes?” 

“Why, yes, sir,” replied the tailor, “I learned from Mr. Bur- 
ridge. Y’^ou may rely upon my doing my best, sir. My first cousin 
on my mother’s side, sir, is cutter-out to one of the best London 
houses, sir — a Bond Street house — and I shall send the patterns and 
measurements up to him and ask him to oblige me.” 

“ Very good,” said Mr. Ragshaw loftily. “ i hope your etfortjs 
will be satisfactory. Y^'ou will push the goods forward? Thank 
you.” 

The tailor departed, first to display the selected patterns in the bar, 
.. and next, after a friendly glass, to his shop. Then the boot maker 
was sent for, and the hatter, and the hosier, preference in each in- 
stance being given to Bolsover’s tenants. The thing began to look 
like a mad and fantastic dream, and there were moments when the 
confusion of Kimberley’s thoughts mounted to such a height of 
stupefaction and bewilderment that he would have been glad to 
awake from it and find himself bound to the desk again. 

To all this excitement and bewilderment succeeded dinner, but 
Bolsover played a very poor knife and fork indeed, i-n spite of Rag- 
shaw’s promptings. He saw several .things he had never seen in all 
his simple life before ; and the little paper rutiles at the end of the 
cutlets, the sheet of stiff writing-paper which lay between the fish 
and the dish on which it was served, the colored claret-glasses, the 
table-napkins, the silver forks, the dish-covers, were all new to him. 
Black coffee was a curious and distasteful novelty. He had been 
used to take a very weak and watery decoction of coffee and chicory. 
He had, in short, been used to all the ways of decent poverty, and 
had never dined at a hotel table before. It was natural that he 
should take Ragshaw as his model in dealing with these unexpected 
and unknown things, and he held his knife and fork like Ragshaw, 
and a bit of biead to hold bis fish steady whilst he got at it with his 
fork like Ragshaw; and whatsoever that cultured being did Kimber- 
ley followed suit. 

The landlady herself served at table, and was embarrassingly 
obsequious, and but for Ragshaw ’s presence Kimberley felt that he 
would have sunk altogether beneath the weight of her attentions. 


18 


‘^‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


lie did not quite know it, but be bad. never been so unhappy In bis 
life before, never so helpless, never so little satisfied with himself. 
But the great blow of the day fell when the triumvirate from the 
“ Whig ” appeared, and the landlady ushered in first the editor, next 
Mr. Amelia, and last Mr. Maddox, a terrible youth who had pub- 
licly chaffed him at the weekly meelings of the Young Men’s 
Mulual Improvement Society, and whom he knew to entertain the 
meanest opinions of him. When they were announced Kimberley 
almost clung to Ragshaw. 

“ You won’t leave me, sir, will you?” said the miserable mill- 
ionaire. 

” Allow me to take all the trouble from your shoulders, sir,” re- 
turned Mr. Ragshaw. When the trio entered he ushered each one 
to a seat with a magnificent courtes5^ “And now, gentlemen, in 
what way can we be of service to you?” 

“Well,” said the meek editor defensively, “ the sudden change 
in Mr. Kimberley’s position (upon which 1 am sure nobody con- 
gratulates him more heartily than I do) — the sudden change is of 
course likely to be very interesting to the townspeople, and indeed 
to the country at large. 1 am the editor of the ‘ Gallo wbay Whig,’ 
as Mr. Kimberley knows, and these gentlemen are members of the 
staff. We are here to ask if Mr. Kimberley will oblige us with a 
few little details of his career. This is Mr. Amelia, our chief of 
staff, Mr. Kimberley. Perhaps if you would be so good as to talk 
to him for a few minutes whilst Mr. Ragshaw — Mr. Ragshaw, 1 be- 
lieve? — whilst Mr. Ragshaw gives me a few particulars about the 
estate, and the tracing of the family connection, we might economize 
a little time. ’ ’ 

Mr. Amelia fixed the millionaire and drew a chair up to the table 
near the corner at which he sat. Next he produced a notebook and 
a pencil ready sharpened, 

“We may as well begin at the beginning, sir,” he said, with 
cheerful affability. “ Kindly tell me the date of your birth.” 

“ I was thirty-five last March, ’ said Kimberley feebly, with an 
appealing glance at Ragshaw. 

“ Day of the month?” said Mr. Amelia. 

“The tenth.” 

“ Native place?” 

“Gallowbay.” 

“ Christian names of parents?” 

“ Bolsover and Mary Ann. ” Kimberley began to find himself at 
ease. Mr. Amelia was not abasing himself before him as everybody 
else had done that day, and his crisp business manner was like a 
tonic to the bashful man. 

“ Any facts about wur father’s history?” 

“ I don’t think so,’’ answered Kimberley, uncertainly. 

“Must have been some facts,” said Mr. Amelia, cheerfully. 

“ Born somewhere. Died somewhere. Got married between whiles. 
Pursued some occupation, probably.” 

“ He was born in Gallowbay,” said Kimberley, thus stimulated. 

“ I don’t think he had any occupation in particular,” 

“ Private means?” asked Mr. Amelia. 


'"THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 19 

“Oh, dear no, sir,” replied Kimberley. “But he was rather 
feeble in his health, and, mostly, my mother provided for the ’ouse. ’’ 

“We are willing to give information freely,” said Mr. Ragshaw, 
breaking in at this point, and leaving a query of the editor’s unan- 
swered; “ but we expect discretion to be employed.” 

“ Certainly; certainly,” says the editor. “ Perhaps Mr. Kimber- 
ley would like to see the proofs before we go to press. He can then 
— eliminate anything he would prefer not to appear.” 

“ That will be quite satisfactory, sir; quite satisfactoiy, ” said Mr. 
Ragshaw in his grandest manner; and the examination being 
continued, Bolsover laid bare his simple annals. 

The proof-sheets came next day, and he read with blushes, and 
with pride and shame and a strange crowd of mingled feelings, the 
life and history of “our distinguished townsman.” He read that 
he was rather below than above the middle height, of pleasing ex- 
terior and unassuming manners. He read that he looked back at his 
boyhood’s days with affectionate regret, and that he still cherished 
a lively interest in that benevolent foundation to which he himself 
owed his early training He read all the proofs of his descent from 
the commodore “ on the distaff side,” and discovered that a far- 
away ancestor of whom he had never heard before had been 
ennobled by Richard the Second. After all he was somebody in the 
world, and it was a proud thing to know it. 

But his long life of servitude, his native shyness, and his want of 
nerve, the habits formed in the thirty-five years for which he had 
been nobody in particular, all weighed heavily upon him, and he 
was far from being happy. 


CHAPTER HI. 

The oflices of Messrs. Begg, Batter, and Bagg, solicitors, stood 
back a little from the High Street of the county town, behind a 
bower of trees and shrubs, and the senior partner sitting alone, with 
his window open to the summer weather, could, if he were so mind- 
ed, see, without being seen, all passengers and equipages that moved 
along the road. Messrs. Begg, Batter, and Bagg performed -the very 
highest class of business, ana enjoyed the confidence of the nobility 
and gentry. Even though the profits of the firm had to be parted 
into three shares, each partner drew a fat and comfortable income. 
The senior partner’s share was naturally the fattest and most com- 
fortable, and the senior partner himself was a'man of genial and 
tolerant aspect, ecclesiastical rather than legal in his looks; some- 
thing like a rural dean — if one could fancy such a thing— in mufti. 

He sat back in his chair, staring placidly at the street and toying 
with his gold-rimmed double glasses, a sunny, respectable, w^ell-to- 
do old man, with scarcely a care upon his mind. A knock at the 
door awoke him from his reverie, and a clerk announced Lord 
Windgall. 

“ Show his lordship this way, Mr. Yielding,” said the senior part- 
ner, and the clerk retiring, the old gentleman arose, pulled down his 
portly waistcoat with both hands, and settled his tall collars. 

“ The Earl of Windgall, sir,” said the clerk, throwing open the 
door. Mr. Begg advanced to meet his lordship, and shook hands in 


20 ‘'THE WAT OF THE WORLD.” 

a way which implied a recognition of the privilege bestowed upon 
him. 

“ A fine day,” said the solicitor. “ Beautiful growing weather. 
We should look for a fine harvest this year.” 

” Yes,” said his lordship, dropping into the chair the clerk had 
set for him, and laying his Lat and cane upon the table. ‘‘ Wliat’s 
this news about Gallowbay, Begg?” 

The Earl of Windgall was a small man with gray side whiskers 
and gray tufty hair. He was a good deal withered, and features 
that had once been delicate had grown pinched and careworn. His 
gray eyes were kindly, and looked from 'under his shaggy gray eye- 
brows with a glance of sagacity and sometimes of dry humor; but 
the dominant expression of his face was to be found in the region of 
the lips, and was almost querulous. 

“ What’s this news about Gallowbay, Begg? Is it true?” 

“What is the news, my lord?” asked the solicitor, rubbing his 
hands and smiling comfortably, as if to say that a lawyer should 
stand out for precision. 

“ That a clerk in the office of that fellow Blandy has turned out to 
be heir to the Gallowbay estate.” 

“That is certainly true, ” said Mr. Begg. “ That is undeniably 
true.” 

“ Ah!” said his lordship, pulling his gloves off nervously and be- 
ginning to pull them on again. “ It is true, eh? M-m-m. No 
possibility of a flaw in the proofs? No Tittlebat Titmouse business 
over again?” 

IVlr. Begg let off a mellow laugh, subdued to the confidential tone, 
and rubbed his hands again. 

“ Capital story that,” he said. “ Apart from its treatment of the 
legal element, a capital story.” 

“ Do you know the man?” asked Windgall. “ Have you seen 
him?” 

“ No,” said Mr. Begg, lightly. “ We expect him to call to-mor- 
row. Mr. Ragshaw, our managing clerk, went over and communi- 
cated the news to him in the first instance.” 

“ What sort of a fellow is he?” The peer wore a self-conscious 
and almost guilty look when he put this question. “ Can he carry 
his money?” 

“ Well,” said Mr. Begg, “ so far as I can judge from Ragshaw ’s 
report, he will find, it rather hard to carry his money. He seems to 
be a shy little man, gauche and — and — underbred, even for his late 
position.” 

Mr. Begg made this announcement with an air of delicacy. One 
would scarcely have thought him likely to be so tender to an absent 
stranger, howsoever considerable his affairs might be. When he 
had spoken he looked at Lord Windgall, and Lord Windgall looked 
at him, with an odd kind of reticence in expression. 

“ That is a pity,” said the withered peer. 

“ Yes,” assented the lawyer, “ it is something of a pity, certainly.” 

“After all,” said his lordship, throwing one leg over the other, 
and taking up his cane from the table, “ these are radical and re- 
publican days, and a man who has more than a million is bound to 


'^THE WAY OP THE WORLD.’’ 21 

be respectable, lie took the cane at either end and bent it to and 
fro, examining its texture closel}' meanwhile. 

“ No doubt,”' said Mr. Begg, as if there were comfort in the re- 
flection; “no doubt.” 

“ I should like to see him,” said the gray little nobleman, glanc- 
ing at the lawyer in a casual way, Kimberley was a natural object 
for curiosity, and it was likely that many people would care to see 
him. He was the nine-days’ wonder of the county. “ I suppose 
you will act for him as you did for poor young Edward?” 

Poor young Edward was the deceased minor — Edward Bolsover 
— whose early death had wrecked the brightest chances the Wind- 
gall family craft had ever carried. 

“I suppose so,” said the lawyer. “It is not probable that he 
will take his affairs out of our hands, Blandy is after him— his late 
employer. That, of course,” said Mr. Begg, with a gesture of al- 
lowance, “ is only natural.” 

“ I presume,” said the earl, “ that even if he wanted to call in 
his money you could arrange elsewhere?” 

“ With regard to the first mortgage?” asked Mr, Begg. “Cer- 
tainly. Your lordship need be under no apprehension in that quar- 
ter.” 

“ And what about the new arrangement?” the earl asked, nerv- 
ously. - 

“ Impossible, my lord,” returned Mr. Begg, with regretful em- 
phasis. “ I regret to say it, but— impossible.” 

“ Very well,” said the earl, with a sigh. “ I suppose the timber 
must go.” 

“ I am afraid so,” returned Mr. Begg, “lam very much afraid 
so. In fact, I can see nothing else for it —nothing — else — for it. ’ ’ 

“ It looks bad,” said his lordship. 

“ It is bad,” answered the solicitor. “ Very unfortunate. Very. 
But unavoidable.” 

“ If poor Edward had lived,” said the earl, rising and laying his 
hand upon his hat, “ it would all have been very different.” 

“Yes, indeed,” assented Mr. Begg. “He was young, but he 
understood things. He saw, from both sides, the advantages of the 
match. Birth and beauty on one side, and on the other vast pos- 
sessions.” 

“ But then he wasn’t a parvenu,” said his lordship, “anymore 
than I am a pauper. Poor Edward was a gentleman to the finger 
tips. He was beginning to take an intelligent interest in politics; he 
would have contested a borough or two against the Whigs, and, 

I with his wealth and the influence one could command fur him, re- 
ward was sure; he would have had his peerage to a certainty.” 
Lord Windgall sighed again, and dug the point of his stick half a 
dozen times at a particular spot in the carpet. “ I can speak to you, 
Begg, with some freedom,” he went on. Mr. Begg bowed slightly 
in acknowledgment, but the other was not looking at him. “ Poor 
Edward’s death was the greatest blow I can remember. Even the 
death of her ladyship was not so great a misfortune. Every man 
thinks his own corns ache worse than his neighbor’s; but, upon my 
word, I seem to be marked out for trouble.” 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


22 


Mr. Be^»:g looked sympathetic, but had nothing to say. The earl, 
after a short pause, went on again — 

“The timber has to go now, and that’s an unpleasant thing to 
happen, a confoundedly unpleasant thing. But 1 suppose you’re 
right, and there’s no help for it.” 

“ To tell you the plain truth, my lord,” said Mr. Begg, “ nothing 
but the knowledge of the existing engagement between the Honora- 
ble Miss Alice and poor young BolsovW prevented the timber from 
going a year ago. The estates lie side by side, and a union between 
the two families looked a very natural and very fitting thing. Veiy 
natural. V ery fitting. ’ ’ 

Mr. Begg was plainly embarrassed, and was doing his best to 
seem at ease. He and his noble client- were friends in a way, and 
he was as grieved at the Windgall family troubles as any lawyer 
could be expected to be. He had it in his mind that his lordship 
was willing to see a way out of his troubles, and the idea disturbed 
him, because the way seemed disgraceful to an old family even if it 
could be taken, and could only be entered on with a sense of mean- 
ness. If Bolsover Kimberley had been a gentleman — if he had only 
been ever so like a gentleman — it would have been better. Any 
newly-made millionaire might rejoice at the chance of a union with 
the Santerres; and if the millionaire were only presentable, the San- 
terres had right enough to rejoice at the chance of union with him. 

“ We’re asked to pity the poor working-classes, begad!” said the 
earl, with a half-hearted laugh, “ Who pities a poor peer?” He 
tried to make a jest of this, but it was loo obviously a serious thing 
with him, and Mr, Begg’s embarrassment deepened. He could have 
wished that the head of so noble a family should have been a little 
more like his own ideal of a nobleman, and he was certain that no 
troubles of his own would have drawn him into this sort of confi- 
dence with a lawyer if he had been a peer of the realm. Most people 
think more highly of w^orldly dignities than the holders of them can 
afiord to do. The wearer of any dignity is conscious of the man 
within the robe. The most undignified pains do not spare him, 
“ I must have a look at this fellow,” said Windgall, suddenly, and 
with as casual an air as he could assume, “ All the county’s talk- 
ing about him, and I’m curious to see what manner of man he is. 
If he isn’t actually impossible one can hardly help meeting so near 
a neighbor.” 

Mr, Begg allowed a silent sigh to escape him. 

“ He is staying at the ‘ Windgall Arms,’ my lord, at Gallowbay. ” 

“ I can’t call on him there,” said the earl, hastily. He actually 
blushed a second later to think how plainly he was showing his 
hand. But the very shame he felt helped him to harden his heart. 
“ I shall either have to know him or not to know him,” he went 
on, “ and I may as well know which it is to beat once. About what 
time is he to be here to-morrow?” 

“We expect him at noon,” said Mr. Begg, accepting the inevita- 
ble, though with an audible sigh this time. “ If your lordship 
should care to call at one o’clock we could introduce him then ; Rag- 
shaw,” he added, “is not the best judge of a gentleman in the 
world, to be sure, but he has formed the meanest opinion of him— 
the meanest opinion. ” 


'‘THE WAY OF THE WOKLD.” 23 

Kagshaw?” said the earl. “ Oh! Your managiug clerk! Yes, 
I remember to have seen him. Well, you know, Begg, if the man’s 
impossible, he is impossible, and there’s an end of it. Don’t bother 
me about the timber until you have made the best arrangement you 
see your way to. Good-day. 1 shall drop in to-morrow, to have a 
look at our nine-days’ wonder.” 

The head of the eminent legal firm escorted the earl to the caiTiage 
which waited without, and then returning to his own room rang his 
bell and asked for Mr. Ragshaw. Mr. Ragshaw appearing, in rai- 
ment of more sober dye than he had worn on the memorable morn- 
ing of his visit to Kimberley, the lawyer feigned to be busy for a 
moment or two with the papers on his desk. Two or three of these 
he handed to the confidential clerk with instructions, and then, with 
the manner of one who suddenly remembers, he said — 

” By-the-bye, Mr. Ragshaw, Mr. Kimberley comes to-morrow?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ At what time? At noon, did you say?” 

“ At noon, sir.” 

“What sort of person is he, now?” asked Mr. Begg, turning 
round in his chair and fixing the gold bound glasses on his nose. 
“You knew something of him, didn’t you, before anybody guessed 
that he was worth a farthing?” 

“ I met him once or twice, sir, in the way of business,” returned 
Ragshaw. 

“ Well, now, what did you think of him then? 1 don’t want to 
know what you think of him now, for nobody thinks disrespectfully 
of a man as rich as he is ; but what were you accustomed to think 
of him?” 

“ Why, sir,” said Mr. Ragshaw, with a smile which meant, if it 
meant anything, that Ragshaw had known the distance betw^een 
Kimberley and himself, and had not been disposed to examine him 
too closely. 

“ Speak out,” said Mr. Begg. “ What did you think of him?” 

“ Well, sir,” returned Ragshaw, smiling still, “ I thought him a 
very inconsiderable sort of person. I don’t know, sir, that 1 
thought about him at all, to speak quite truly. He was, not the sort 
of man, sir,” added Ragshaw, “ that a man feels inclined to think 
of.” 

“ Nervous, I think you said.” 

“ Dreadfully nervous, sir. Yery shy and awkward.^ Tried to 
cut a raised pie with a spoon at a table, sir, and doubled it clean up. 
Then put the spoon in his coat pocket when he thought 1 wasn’t 
looking.” 

“ Well, now,” said Mr. Begg, conversationally, and as if he were 
in a mood to unbend pleasantly, “ he won’t be able to hide himself. 
People won’t let him hide himself. Do you think he’ll polish? Is 
he the sort of man to polish? Has he any nous or savozr faire at 
all?” 

“ 1 don’t think, sir,” returned Ragshaw, “ that he ever will get 
polished, since you ask my opinion. 1 should say you might as well 
try to polish a bath -brick, sir.” 

“You might japan or lacquer even that,” said the lawyer. “ Let 
me see, how old is he — thirty-five?” 


24 ^'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

“Yes, sir,’’ answered Ragshaw, “ thirty-five.” 

“M-m-m!” said Mr. Begg. “You’ll look into that matter of 
Barber’s personally, Mr. Ragshaw?” 

“ Yes, sir,” responded Ragshaw; and, feeling himself dismissed, 
withdrew. The old lawyer turned toward the window and fell to 
tapping his knuckles with his glasses. 

“ I’m afraid,” he said to himselt, “ that his lordship wdll find him 
‘ impossible,’ as he calls it. And yet I don’t know. There are men 
who would consort with a Caribbean savage hunchbacked, if he 
owned a million of money. There are men who would consent to 
become father-in-law to a gorilla for half, the money. I shall see the 
young man for myself to-morrow.” 

He dismissed the theme from his thoughts, and scarcely allowed 
it again to enter his mind until nearly noon on the following day, 
when in spite of himself he became interested in the approaching 
visitor, and wondered what he “would be like. The Cathedral clock 
was chiming “ Adeste Fideles ” to mark the hour of noon, and the 
sound came pleasantly subdued through closed windows, when one 
of the clerks tapped at the door, and, being told to enter, presented 
Mr. Begg with a card which bore the name of Bolsover Kimberley. 

‘ ‘ Show the gentleman into this room, ’ ’ said Mr. Begg, and a minute 
later he had his wish, and beheld the new-fledged millionaire. Poor 
Kimberley had lost no time in the adornment of the outer man, and 
he was carefully modeled on the lines which had been presented to 
his admiring mind by Mr. Ragshaw. The egregious glare of scarlet 
scarf, the buff waistcoat, the sky-blue morning coat with the rose in 
the buttonhole, the drab dust overcoat thrown open to display these 
glories, the loud-pattemed plaid trousers, the white gaiters, and the 
patent leather boots — all were there. Kimberley’s fingers were cased 
in kid gloves of primrose color — his all-round collar fixed his neck 
as if he had been pilloried ; he carried a white hat and a tasseled 
walking cane with a gold knob; his watch was cabled to his waist- 
coat by a gorgeous golden fetter. To make matters worse, he was 
not merely overdressed, but he knew it, and looked as if he knew it. 
He perspired with shame and vainglory, and his harmless counte- 
nance was a compendium of embarrassments. His meek whiskers 
dropped as if in deprecation of their owner’s splendor, and his meek 
hair stood up in places as if it protested against any possible suppo- 
sition of its own approval of the vulgar magnificences below it. 

The old lawyer received him with gravity, and having shaken 
hands with him, offered him a seat, and talked trifles for a moment 
or two to put him at his ease. Then he began to speak of business, 
and Kimberley listened at first with a pitiable whirl in his head, but 
later on with some understanding. Mr. Begg was a great man, of 
course, and Kimberley had known of him almost from the beginning 
of his own legal career, but had never before been called upon to face 
him even for a moment. Messrs. Begg, Batter, and Bagg were un- 
doubtedly the first solicitors in the county, and Mr. Begg was senior 
partner and a sort of monarch among country solicitors, like Kim- 
berley’s late employer. But the awe with which the clerk had 
always regarded him w’as melting away, and if he had been less 
burdened , by his clothes, Kimbedey would have felt almost at his 
ease. The announcement of the Earl of Windgall was like the 


‘^THE WAY OE THE WORLD.” 25 

bursting of a bombshell. There was nothing in the world which 
could have terrified him more. 

“ Pray show his lordship to this room at once/' said the lawyer. 
‘‘ Have you met his lordship, Mr. Kimberley?” He asked the ques- 
tion in the most commonplace tone, and as if Kimberley to his cer- 
tain knowledge had been on intimate terms with half the peerage. 
“ If not, I shall be delighted to introduce you.” 

The visitor arose feeMy with trembling limbs, and was indeed so 
alarmed that he found courage to protest. 

“ Not to-day, sir, if you please. ” I'm very sorry, but I’m — ” 

“You are not at all in the way, Mr. Kimberley, I assure you. I 
know his lordship’s business, and shall not detain yoq more than a 
moment.” His lordship entered and saluted Mr. Begg, disregarding 
Kimberley, though he knew perfectly well who he was. “"Permit 
me to introduce Mr. Kimberley to your lordship.” His lordship 
turned with a sort of delighted alacrity. “ The Earl of Windgall, 
Mr. Kimberley.” 

The Earl of Windgall was a little man, but Kimberley was still 
smaller of stature. The nobleman carried himself, if not exactly 
like a nobleman, like a well-bred man of the world; and Kimberley 
shrank and shriveled before him, so that the difference in physique 
was emphasized by attitude. There are lawyers’ clerks in the world 
— so high a development has courage reached in man — who would 
endure a personal introduction to an earl with a pretense of self- 
possession, but Kimberley had always been shy and had never got 
out of the habit of being crushed by the lecturers whom it was "his 
duty to receive in behalf of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement 
Society. 

“lam pleased to meet you, Mr. Kimberley,” said his lordship, 
shaking the wretched little man by the hand. 

Mr. Kimberley gasped and gurgled in response, and his meek and 
distressed little figurehead looked curiously in contrast with the 
vulgar finery which decorated his person. The earl took a seat and 
talked easily with Mr. Begg about the ordinary topics of the mo- 
ment, and now and then a turn of the head plainly but unobtrusively 
inciluded Kimberley, who began to feel less oppressed. Really an 
earl did not seem to be so terrible a creature after all; and in a little 
time Kimberley began to plume himself in harmless trembling vanity 
upon sitting in the same room with a nobleman and a great lawyer, 
and to feel that he was somebody in the world after all. 

Windgall had seen his perturbation, and gave him time to recover 
before he again addressed him. 

“ 1 hope,” he said, after a time, but even then he spoke to the 
lawyer, “that Mr. Kimberley will see his way to a residence 
amongst us. ’ ’ 

“ I hope so too,” said Mr. Begg, with an inquiring and encourag- 
ing eye on Kimberley ; but the mere mention of his name had driven 
the millionaire into his shell again. 

“ Property,” said the earl, with a little sigh, “entails responsi- 
bilities, of which no man can venture to be unmindful.” 

“ The long minority of the late owner,” said Mr. Begg, with a re- 
gretful air, “ was a great grievance to the Gallowbay people — a great 
and legitimate grievance. Mr. Kimberley will be expected to spend 


26 ^'the way of the world.” 

a little time in Gallo wbay. Perhaps/’ he rubbed his hands and 
laughed, “ a little money.” 

“A good deal of trouble,” said the millionaire, with fatuous 
countenauce, but with more wisdom than he was aware of, ” seems 
to go along with having money. ” He blushed and looked unhappy, 
but having found his tongue, he managed to go on in spite of his 
discomfort. ” But if you’ll be so good, sir, as to let me know what 
I ought to do, 1 shall try to do it. The money might have come into 
’ands that could dispense it better, but into none more willing, I’m 
sure.” 

“ There is good sense and modesty in this young man,” said the 
earl to himself, trjung hard to think his best of Mr. Kimberley. 

It is not often that the effort to think well of any of our fellow - 
creatures makes us feel mean, but the Earl of Windgall was not 
proud of himself whilst he tried to think well of Bolsover Kim- 
berley. 

” 1 shall always be happy to advise you, Mr. Kimberley,” said the 
lawyer. 

He did not speak as a lawyer to a client, but as a man of experi- 
ence to a man of inexperience, and Kimberley so understood him, 
and murmured that he would be very much obliged. 

“ I won’t interrupt you furtlier, Mr. Begg, ” said his lordship. “ I 
am pleased to have met Mr. Kimberley, and I trust we shall see more 
of each other.” 

Ml’. Kimberley blushed, and bowed in a prodigious flutter. The 
Earl of Windgall would be glad to see more of him! There is no- 
bod}’- who does not like to be flattered by his own good opinion ; and 
to have been shy and humble all one’s life is no defense against 
vanity if it really makes an assault. Whilst the lawyer saw the 
gracious nobleman clown- stairs, Kimberley struck into an attitude of 
mild swagger, and twirled his cane, though he blushed even as he 
did so. It crossed him with a thrilling sense of daring that he would 
shave off his whiskers and allow his mustache to grow. He might 
even take to wearing an eyeglass. Then even the Lady Ella might 
look at him, and for one minute might forget the lowliness of his 
first estate. 

The earl was driven homeward, and as he went he tried to per- 
suade himself that he was weighing things in his mind, and trying 
to arrive at an honorable conclusion. In spite of himself he felt that 
he was engaged in a shameful enterprise. People would talk if he 
invited this gilded little snob to Shouldershott Castle, and w^ould 
know very well why he was asked there. Let them talk. The man 
was a cad? There was no escape from that conclusion. Well— lots 
of men were cads, 

” Caddom,” said his lordship, with a flash of cynical humor, ” is 
not monopolized by the peers. It isn’t actually amazing to meet a 
cad who is a commoner!” 

It was very shameful, all the same, to be fishing for a fellow w^hose 
only recommendation was his money. 

“ And a very good recommendation too, by gad!” said the poor 
peer. “ A million and a quarter! And if I don’t catch him, some- 
body else will, and the people who will be the most bitterly satirical 
will be the people who have failed.” 


27 


<^thb way of the world,” 


CHAPTER IV. 

The Honorable John George Alaric FitzAdington Clare was the 
second son of Lord Montacute, a nobleman famous for his prodigious 
losses on the turf. To be as unlucky as Montacute had been almost 
a pro 7erb among sporting men. His fortune had known no devia- 
tion : no big win had ever consoled him. In his youth he went to 
Baden with an infallible system, intent on breaking the bank; and, 
as does occasionally happen, in spite of the most infallible of systems, 
the bank broke him. He was, until his father died, as poor as Job 
after this escapade, but the kindly tribes helped him until he came 
into the famil y estates and married money. The man who at one- 
and-twenty could realize his all to set it on the hazard of the black 
and red, could thereafter borrow at exorbitant interest to lose his 
borrowings. When he came into his own he ‘ went the whole ele- 
phant ” — an elegant and expressive locution indicative of thorough- 
ness in pursuit of an object — and whatever he could lose he lost. 
But for the entail and the marriage settlement he would have beg- 
gared his wife and children. The human intellect is so curiously 
arranged that there were people who admired him, and he was with 
many the type of the Good Old English Gentleman. He squandered 
money which was not righteously his own, he associated mainly with 
people who were miles beneath him in social state and education, he 
was an hereditary legislator and the boon companion of jockeys. 
A hard drinker, a bad husband, and a careless father, he was popu- 
lar with the community he cared most to know, and he died lament- 
ed, a nobleman of the old school, whom the sporting prints mourned 
as the last, or almost the last, of his race. 

He married an angel of a w^oman, and but that she was blessed 
with the care of children he would have broken one of the sweetest 
hearts in the world. Lady Montacute had two sons, and she made 
it her study to breed them like Christian gentlemen. Even when 
lads do not remember all their mothers’ lessons, they remember some 
of them, and the memory of the sorrowful soul who stayed at home 
and prayed for them kept them many a time out of mischief of the 
graver sort. She taught them her own simple religious creed, and if 
they forgot it as boys do forget, ihey cherished, at least, a sort of 
heathen reverence for sacred things, and led lives which in the main 
were pure and wholesome. 

The new Lord Montacute, poor as he was, was a model landlord, 
and he laid himself out to secure an honorable position in politics. 
The Honorable John, his brother, chose the profession of arms, and 
was a favorite alike with the men of his regiment and with his 
brother officers. The two young men, in short, conducted them- 
selves with so much probity and good sense, had so high a code of 
honor, and were withal so genial and likable, that the heart of the 
dowager was glad in them, and her widowhood made atonement for 
the unhappiness of her married life. 

It is not held to be convenient, even in the most leisurely circles, 
to speak of a man by so lengthy a style as that owned by the Hon- 


28 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 


orablc John George Alaric Fitz Adington Cln re, and it was the custom 
among his intimates to call the young gentleman Jack. The reader 
will acquit me of presumption if 1 follow that example. It is sim- 
ply — I assure you — a matter of convenience. 

He was a model of graceful strength, and had a plain English 
face expressive of many pleasing qualities, amongst which candor 
and good humor were conspicuous. His hair was of a reddish 
chestnut hue, and his disposition was proportionately w^arm, hope- 
ful, and impetuous. He was flve-and-twenty yeai’s of age, had just 
got his troop, and was an almost universal favorite. Yet in spite of 
all his advantages of youth, health, birth, and temperament. Jack 
Clare was unhappy, and his sorrows arose from one of the common- 
est of causes. The young man was in love, very loyally and hon- 
estly in love, and he had good reason to believe his passion hopeless. 

There are few growths of social life so curious as the various con- 
ditions of poverty. Jack Clare had his pay and an allowance of 
three hundred pounds a j^ear. The Lady Ella Santerre, to whom 
he was profoundly devoted, had in her own right an income about 
equal to her lover’s, and she liked him well enough to have married 
him, if poverty’s stern hairier could have been taken down. The 
young people, with the improvidence natural to youth, were ready 
to brave the world on this absurdly insufficient income, but the lady 
had a father who had known the grip of poverty all his life, and the 
young man had a mother who had felt its sting for man}'' years, and 
the one commanding and the other persuading kept the two children 
out of mischief. 

Jack, being quartered at Bryanstowe, was within an easy drive of 
IMontacute Honor, and was naturally often to be seen at home. He 
made very creditable efforts to appear cheerful there, but both his 
mother and his brother could see through his artifices, and knew 
that he Avas taking his love affairs seriously. Lord Montacute Avas 
something of a Liberal amongst the Conservative Peers Avith whom 
he sat, and he Avas regarded by some of the more old-fashioned as 
being a little dangerous in his views, but Jack, who had never hith- 
erto meddled with politics at all, began to have such aAvfully free- 
thinking ideas that his elder brother trembled for him. 

“ I’ll be hanged,” he said one day, ‘ if I can see the good of an 
aristocracy at all.” Lord Montacute looked at his brother with an 
eye of doubtful expression. Was there a tile loose any where, or was 
there a joke in store? “ We’re all one flesh, and blood,” said Jack, 
“ and I’ve got just as many toes and fingers as a plowman has. And 
I’ll tell you what it is, Charley. There’s a smash coming — a break 
up — here, there, and everywhere. We can’t stand the racket, Char- 
ley. Those Radical fellows won’t have us much longer unless we 
wake up and do something. ’ ’ 

Lord Montacute answered only the concluding sentence of this 
discontented young man’s address. 

” The loyal party in the country is quite strong enough to hold 
the Radicals in check.” 

“lam not so sure of that,” said Jack; “ and even if it’s true, I 
am not sure that it always will be, and I am not eA^en sure that ’it 
ought to be.” 

Jack,” said Lord Montacute, “ these arc very serious opinions.” 


29 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WOKLD.” 

“ They are, indeed,” said Jack. 

” They are crude and dangerous opinions,” said Lord Montacute, 
with gravity. ‘‘ The only way with them is to think them clearly 
out.” 

Then Jack Clare arose and delivered an harangue which well-nigh 
caused his noble brother’s glossy and combined locks to part, and 
each particular hair to stand on end. Time had been, he declared, 
when an aristocracy had been useful to the world, and its growth a 
thing inevitable. Whilst the priesthood conserved learning, the 
aristocracy conserved or modeled manners, and created a heathen 
code of morals to supplement and peii'ect the code taught by the 
priests. Now their work was done, their day was over, the only 
thing left for them was to sing Nunc dimittis and gracefully retire. 
The chariot of public progress was coming down the road, and the 
aristocratic apple-cart would be overturned. Then, ceasing to be 
figurative and general, the young man proceeded to handle liis own 
case, and to’ show by it that an hereditary aristocmcy was placed in 
a false position. 

“ 1 am as poor as a rat, and 1 am not only poor, but 1 am a pris 
oner. I am hampered by ten thousand absurd conventions.” 

“ Mention ten,” said Montacute. 

The Honorable Mr. Clare did not see his way to the immediate 
mention of ten. This kind of request is apt to be disconcerting to an 
orator, who must needs have a little fervor to get along with. 

“ If 1 were not a gentleman,” he declared, “ 1 should be free to 
choose whatever career seemed fittest for me. ’ ’ 

” Do you propose to abolish gentlemen?” Montacute demanded. 

“That’s very well as repartee,” said Jack, “but it isn’t argu- 
ment. 1 don’t want to abolish a slave because I ask you to knock 
off his fetters. Why am I poor?” 

“You are poor and 1 am poor,” said Montacute, “for reasons 
which are best not talked about. ” 

“ I am poor,” cried Jack, “ because I am the son of a nobleman 
and the brother of a nobleman. 1 am poor by convention and gen- 
eral understanding. But 1 am not poor in reality. My little hand- 
ful of money goes in things that are necessary to no man’s happi- 
ness or well-being. If it were reasonably spent it would give me all 
a man need ask for. Apart from the conventions, 1 am wealthy. 
Restricted by the conventions, I am only not a pauper. And these 
same conventions, let me tell you, Charley, are blackguard and 
scoundrelly things. See what they lead to in our case. See what 
they can do, even with an angel of a woman like our mother: the 
best woman we ever knew, and most likely the best woman we ever 
shall know.” 

“ What have the conventions done to our mother, Jack?” asked 
the other, seriously. 

Jack shrugged his shoulders, and turned away with a blush upoi*- 
his cheek. 

“ You know well enough. It doesn’t need that a man should 
have to storm against them, when he knows that they have persuad- 
<!d such a woman as she is that her own sons aie doing well in try- 
ing to marry money.” 

Lord Montacute lit a cigar— it was in his own private den that this 


30 ^‘THE WAY OF THE WOULD.” 

conversation was held — and smoked for a minute or two before he 
answered. 

“ Jack/' he said then, “ the murder’s out.” 

Jack, standing at the window, shrugged his broad shoulders 
anew, and blushed a second time. 

” The cat is out of the bag,” said his lordship, and again Jack 
shrugged his shoulders. ” These ideas are not political, but per- 
sonal. I put it to your better judgment: Is it worth while to hold 
and express such sentiments as I have listened to — sentiments 
which, if translated into action, would lead to serious consequences, 
possibly to disastrous consequences, not because you have deliber- 
ately and patiently arrived at them by much thinking, but because 
you have formed an unfortunate attachment to a lady?” 

Jack Clare responded, without turning from the window. 

‘ ‘ 1 submit to your better judgment. Is there nothing at fault in 
the social rules which make the attachment unfortunate? Why 
should the attachment be unfortunate? What is there in the nature 
ol things to make it anything but fortunate?” 

” The world was made for us. Jack,” said the elder brother, not 
unsympathetically. “If we could make it over again, there are 
many things in it we might like to alter. But we have to endure it 
as it is, and, in the main, even as it stands, it’s not a very bad 
world.” 

“It is a bad world,” returned Jack, turning upon his brother 
somewhat hotly, “ and at the bottom of your heart you know it. A 
world -full of lies, and humbug, and pretense— a world full of 
cruelty, and oppression, and bitterness.” 

“ Jack,” said my Lord Montacute, from his stand near the fire- 
place, “ 1 am only half-a-dozen years older than you are, but I have 
been through the mill myself, and 1 know what it is; and I’ll tell 
you what 1 did all the time, and it’s the identical thing I should ad- 
vise you to do. ’ ’ 

“ You were always a superior person,” said Jack, half humorous, 
half angry. “ What did you do?” 

“ 1 held my jaw,” said his lordship, watching the smoke of his 
cigar as it curled about him. 

“ All right,” said Jack. “ 1 can take a hint as well as my neigh- 
bors.” I’ll hold mine.” He took a cigar from the open cabinet 
upon the table, lit it, and sat staring out of the window. By-and-by 
he asked, in a softened voice, “ When was it, Charley?” 

“ When 1 was at Trinity,” said Montacute, tranquilly. 

“ Who was she?” 

Jack could lend a sympathizing ear to an unprosperous love tale, 
when he could do it without looking sentimental, as he surely might 
do in the case of his own brother. “ Who was she?” 

“■Little girl named Carmichael,” answered Montacute, still star- 
ing at the smoke wreaths. “ Cigar divan — opposite—” 

“ What?” cried Jack, rising with a gesture almost tragic. “ You 
have the cheek to tell me that you have been through the mill, be- 
cause you spooned a girl at a cigar divan before you were one-and- 
twentyl 1 supposed— if you honored me with your confidence at all 
— that 1 should h(;ar a story of lady and gentleman, and not of 
undergrad and shop-girl.” hie reseated himself, and smoked with 


31 


“THE AVAY OF THE WORLD.’* 

a look of deep disgust, as if liis tobacco were mrned to wormwood. 
Lord Montacute smiled, and settled his shoulders against the mantel- 
shelf. ^ 

“ King Cophetua wooed the beggar-maid,” he answered, with no 
abatement of tranquillity. ” You think the parallel between your 
case and mine unfair. 1 don’t. A man can only be in love, just as 
he can only be dead. There are no comparatives — dead, more dead, 
most dead; in love, more in love, most in love. The thing is abso- 
lute, or it is a mere pretense. I was in love. I loathed the world, 
and 1 cursed social distinctions. Well, I got over it, and here I am, 
fairly happy, tolerably contented. But while the thing was on,” 
he concluded, “ 1 held my jaw.” 

“ So 1 should imagine,” said Jack, still mightily disdainful and 
disgusted. 

The subject was dropped and was no more renewed between them 
for a long time, when chance led to the renewal of their talk. But 
that is far ahead in the story. 

Jack dined at Montacute Honor and drove back to barracks in the 
cool of the evening, beneath a moon which inspired all the quiet 
landscape, and seem^ for all its peacefulness to be in some strange 
way in consonance with his own unsatisfied desire. It was unwise 
in him when he had reached his quarters and dismissed his man to 
take out from a secret drawer the photographic presentment of the 
Lady Ella, and bending over it beneath the lamp to stare at it for 
an hour together. It was unwise to call to mind all the sweet things 
the beautiful lips had said to him, and all the tender glances the 
lovely eyes had given him, before the edict went out for their separa- 
tion. But this was a sort of unwisdom which is common with five- 
and twenty, and not very reprehensible to the mind of the sternest 
sage who can remember the days of his own youth, when his heart 
was warm and tender. That we should all ham to grow gray, my 
brethren! That there should be no help for it! 

There were young ladies in Bryanstowe and its neighborhood who 
thought well of Captain the Honorable John George Alaric Fitzad- 
ington Clare, and some of them had money enough to have kept his 
starven coffers full for life; but they knew that smiles were wasted 
on him. A military man, handsome, and nobly born, who has a 
romantic attachment to a lady in his own station, is likely to be an 
object of friendly interest to the young women who happen to know 
him, and Jack’s story was, somehow or other, abroad. Nobody is 
altogether sure as to the way in which these things come to be 
known; but the attempt to keep them secret is very rarely success- 
ful. And when it became known that Lady Ella was a visitor at 
the house of her late mother’s dear friend. Lady Caramel, and was 
thus brought within a dozen miles of Bryanstowe, all the fashion- 
able tongues of that quarter of the world were busy with con jectures 
as to what would happen. It was universally admitted that the 
poor girl’s mother would have known better than to have brought 
her into such close proximity to an old lover — unless, indeed, con- 
trary to general belief, the attachment had only been on one side — 
and it was owned that a father could not be expected to act with 
any great prescience in such a matter. For one thing, during the 
London season, a good mother would have taken care that a mar- 


82 ^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

riageable daughter should be in town, where she might have a 
chance of forming a desirable union, though as a set-off against that 
argument it was urged that there were two orthree very eligible gen- 
tlemen in the neighborhood, who were at home in good society, and 
had money enough to make them welcome to so poor a noble family 
as that of the Windgalls. 

Lady Ella came, and local eyes and tongues were busy. Lady Ella’s 
time of stay was over, and she went away again. The Argus eye had 
noted nothing; but something had happened beyond its vision. It 
had been seen that Captain Clare had not accepted, if he had even 
received, a single invitation from Lady Ella’s hostess, and that he 
had half-a-dozen times ridden out of town alone in the direction of 
Montacute Honor. But it was a secret buried in Jack’s own breast 
that on each of these occasions he had turned off to the right, and 
had gone as straight as the roads would carry him toward the house 
which held his love. It was a secret from the prying eyes and gos- 
siping tongues that he had prowled like a poacher about the park, 
eying the mansion from sheltered places like a thief, or a member of 
an Irish Brotherhood. It was a secret that on the occasion of the 
fifth of these visits (when, having left his horse at an obscure inn 
half-a-mile away, he had scaled the park- wall), he had been pounced 
upon by a wary gamekeeper, who, prowling about without his gun, 
was at no particular advantage, and not being at first amenable to 
reason had to be soundly thrashed and then propitiated with three 
sovereigns and the promise of more if he behaved himself in future. 
It was a secret also that a part of the reformed gamekeeper’s good 
behavior— for -which Jack Clare gave him high credit, and afterward 
little as he could afford it, a five-pound note — was the dexterous 
smuggling of a missive into the hands of Lady Caramel’s maid, who 
in turn stuck it in the frame of the mirror in Ella’s dressing-room. 
That Lady Ella found the note and knew the handwriting, that she 
cried over it and kissed it, and that she kept the rendezvous it prayed 
for were secrets also, as they had a right to be. 

1 should like to describe the Lady Ella before we go further with 
the history of her love affairs. She was proud and tender, and at 
once enthusiastic and reserved. She was truer in friendship than 
ninety-nine girls in a hundred, and she was not merely pretty but 
downright lovely, so that she impressed wilh a sort of gentle splen- 
dor all who beheld hei’. Her eyes and hair were as dark as an En- 
glishwoman’s well can be, the rich blood mantled in her cheek with 
any touch of emotion at music, or a lofty thought, or the recital of 
a good deed ; her lips were sw eet, rosy and mobile. She smiled rarely, 
seeing how young she was, but when her smile came it atoned for 
rarity. She was tall for a woman, and in mold full and fine, and 
there was an inbred refinement in her which could only come of 
many generations of gentle living and high thinking. A female 
novelist has told us recently that to her thinking the word “ Lady ” 
is odious. For my part, I like the word so well that it seems worthy 
to describe this delightful and high-bred young Englishwoman. It 
is only amongst people of the great Anglo-Saxon race that human 
products so exquisite are found, and there are few general posses- 
sions with -which a rational patriot would not more readily part. A 
beautiful young woman is a benefaction to mankind at’ large, and 


^^THE AVA.Y OF THE WORLD/’ 33 

when an old English stock flowers out in the full glory of perfect 
health and form and texture, with a nature serviceable and sweet to 
suit the frame it lives in, there is no wholesome human creature who 
can look upon that delicious growth without pleasure. 

In spirit Jack Clare used to go upon his knees to her whenever he 
thought about her, and when, on this especial day, he saw her com- 
ing through the sunlit woods to meet him, she was like the creature 
of another sphere to him. 

“ Jack,” she said, with only a half reproach in her candid eyes, 

this is wrong and foolish.” 

” Don’t say that, dear,” answered Jack, appealingly. 

”1 must say it,” she responded. ” It is wrong, because you 
promised me — ” 

” 1 know,” said Jack mournfully. 

” It is foolish, because it pains you, and can do no good.” 

” Pains me?” said Jack, in tender scorn. “Pains me! If you 
knew how I love you, Ella, you would never think so!” 

“ Hush!” she said. “ You must not talk so.” 

“ 1 must,” he answered. “ I have come to make a last appeal, 
Ella. If you care at all to know it, and I think you do, I love you 
as I don’t think a man ever loved a Avoman before. I must speak, 
darling, if it is for the last time. We have very little, but we have 
enough, and I have been thinking how slavish and poor it is to sit 
down here in this worn-out country and let the social weeds grow 
over us until they shut out our last glimpse of sunlight, when we 
might go away and be free and happy, and perhaps a little useful in 
the world. If I sell my commission and realize everything ” — she 
raised her hand against him, but he took it in both his OAvn and went 
■on in spite of warning — “ I shall have eleven thousand pounds, and 
with that in New Zealand, or Australia, or Manitoba^ or wherever 
the chances are best and brightest, I could buy land ana cultivate 
it, or rear sheep or cattle, and own more acres and have more money 
by and by than ever the W indgalls and the Montacutes owned in 
ail their idle lives. Give me just a word of hope, darling, and I’ll 
go out and work as many years as Jacob served Laban.” 

It seemed to him so possible, so reasonable, so natural that she 
should see his scheme as he saw it, that his gray eyes flashed with 
anticipations of triump/ and the diflidence with which he had be- 
gun melted into thin air. 

“ You pain yourself,” she said, looking at him with eyes of pity. 
“.Jack, dear,” — he held her hand still, and at this sweet address he 
thrilled and trembled; she had never spoken so since they were chil- 
dren — “ if I seem cruel now it is only to save you from more pain 
and trouble. It is all quite hopeless and impossible.” She did not 
shrink from liis imploring eyes, though her heart ached as sorely as 
his own. “ 1 must stay with my father till he sends me away.” 

“ Till he marries you to some man you can never care for!” cried 
Jack; “ some snob Avith money, Ella. You can’t do it. You can’t 
submit to it. It’s against nature. ” Her glance reproached him, and 
he knew that it was scarcely manly to have spoken so. “I be^ jmur 
pardon, darling. If I could see you happy I shouldn’t mind so 
jnuch.” 

I came to see you, dear,” she said steadily, “ because I could 

a 


34 ‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.”, 

tell you so much better than 1 could have written it. It is all quite 
liopeless and impossible. I can’t break my father’s heart, and I have 
to stay with him. Good-by, Jack. The longer you delay the harder 
it will be to say it. Good-by!” / 

There was no use in lingering, and he knew it, and yet was fain 
to linger. 

“ Well,” he said, summoning all the resolution his sore h^rt 
could hold, ” good-by. I sha’n’t trouble youagaim I’m not going 
to wear my heart on ray sleeve for fools to laugh at. It’s hard to 
say it, but good-by. God bless you! Oh, God bless you!” 

He kissed the gloved hand twice or thrice, and turned away. 
Once, when he had gone a hundred yards, he looked back, and cojild 
see her standing amongst the trees where he had left her. She waved 
her hand to him, and he went on again. When next he turned the 
intervening trees had hidden her, and he could not tell that she was 
kneeling in the fern and crying. He did not think she loved him 
well enough for that — it seemed almost like a sacrilege of her to dare 
to think that^he loved him at all. 

He crept half -dispiritedly to his horse and rode to quarters, wh^e 
he threw a boot at his batman, and sat smoking alone for hours in 
dogged misery. She went back to her hostess, dressed and dined, 
and sang and played after dinner, managing her griefs so well that 
nobody guessed them. They were as real as her lover’s for all that, 
but it was better for him to think her cold to him than to break his 
heart because she was breaking hers. 


CHAPTER V. 

Mr, William Amelia found his lines in fairly pleasant places at 
the office of the ‘ ‘ Gallowbay Whig, ’ ’ but he occupied almost the whole 
of his leisure in looking about for avenues to fortune. Ambition 
spurred him, and he was ready to scorn delight and live laborious 
days. At present his sphere was narrow, and found but small em- 
ployment for his energies. He had no great native tendency to 
study, and for a young man who had entered even upon the out- 
skirts of the kingdom of literature he was amazingly ill-read. He 
knew nothing of history or of poetry or fiction. But in the parlia- 
mentary debates, and in the leading articles of the newspapers, there 
is a prodigious amount of scattered knowledge of a handy sort, and 
these supplied Mr. Amelia’s mind with most of the pabulum it drew 
from foreign sources. With one little leg cocked over the other, and 
his small person, compact big head and up-standing hair obscured 
by an open sheet of the “ Times,” he would skim through the debates 
with searching vision, and long to scarify this or the other honorable 
gentleman who ran his head against fact or common sense, or rea- 
soned right from wrong premises or wrong from right ones. The 
young gentleman had had no training in logic, but he knew what 
the thing was notwithstanding, and false reasoning made him angry. 
He was often an^y when he read the debates in Parliament, and 
felt, as Hamlet did, that the world was out of joint. 

At these times of office leisure Mr. Flinch would sit in his respect- 
able frock coat with his well-oiled hair fitting close to his head, and 
would practice shorthand. 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 

“ Ah say!” would Mr. Flinch exclaim, with an accent of triumph. 
** What d’ye think o’ that for a phraseogram, Mr. Amelia? ‘ 1 have 
r^on to believe that you have already received the articles in ques- 
tion.’ Ah can write that in Pitman’s system without takin’ the pen 
off the paper,” 

“ Indeed!” Mr. Amelia would respond, appearing from behind hi-^ 
“ Tim^” as if he were getting out of bed, and then would glance a; 
Mr. Flinch’s invention, and retire again. 

Mr. Maddox, with his pipe in his mouth and his volume of flclior 
or of verse before him, would generally look up and laugh at thes. 
times. 

“How often do you think you’ll want to write that sentence 
Flinch?” 

“ That’s mah business,” Mr, Flinch would answer. 

“ Don’t you ever get tired of eating sawdust, Flinch?” 

“ Eating sawdust?” cries Flinch. “ Nah, what’s the fool talkin' 
about? Ah niver mentioned eating anything. I was talkin’ abah 
shorthand.” 

“ So was I,” from the satiric Maddox. 

“ You’re a liar,” responds Mr. Flinch, whose weapons of contro- 
versy are unpolished. 

When things came to this pass, as they generally did, the seed; 
junior reporter would drop his book and burst into a shout of laugli 
ter disproportionate to the occasion. Then the mild Rider woul 
enter fr()m his own den and look about him for an explanation o. 
the jest. A very small joke served to break the monotony of office 
life at the “ Gallowbay Whig,” 

‘ ‘ Flinch was born in Boeotia, ’ ’ said the junior, on one such occa 
sion, “ and was expelled by a catapult, so that he picked up no civil 
izing influences by the way.” 

“Ah was born in Rotherham,” Mr. Flinch answered, “and 
niver was expelled from anywhere. And 1 won’t have these thing 
said abaht me. Mind that, Mr. Maddox.” 

Then the mild editor made peace, when the disreputable junic 
had done laughing, and to soothe Mr. Flinch’s wounded feeling- 
invited him to dinner. Mr. Flinch, whose salary was not large an 
whose habits were enforcedly penurious, became gracious at tl- 
prospect of a dinner for nothing, and took airs of patronage wit 
his subordinate. Mr. Rider, going back to the manufacture of hi 
column of local notes, bethought him that it was invidious to b1 
one member of the staff to dinner and exclude the others, and af t( 
some battling with himself and many intricately figured reckoning, 
of ways and means, shuffled into the reporters’ room again an. 
shyly asked the chief and the junior to be his guests on the sam 
day. They accepting, he retired again, and went over his figure 
once more somewhat sadly, not seeing his way to an added expei: 
diture of ten shillings, and dreading a domestic explosion. 

Whatever domestic difficulties were encountered in the interin 
the dinner took place on the appointed Sunday at two o’clock, an 
the three reporters turned up in time, Mr. Amelia appearing in , 
tall hat and new gloves, Mr. Flinch scrupulously respectable jc 
usual, and Mr. Maddox unexpectedly clean in honor of the ladies 
Mrs. Rider was a thin and care-vyorn woman, whose constant coni 


36 ^‘THE WAT OF THE WORLD.” 

plaint itwastiiat her nose was never away from the grindstone. The 
actual feature was thin and red, as if the figure were to be taken 
literally, and the poor woman, who had a big family and a wofully 
small income, was much put to it to make ends meet. The three 
grown-up girls were present at table, and the members of the stalf 
were introduced with his favorite manner of mildly humorous pomp 
by the editor. Junior members of the family were heard scutfiing- 
and fighting in an upper room, and once or twice, maddened by the 
knowledge that pastry was in the house, and stung bj^ the un- 
wonted presence of apples, nuts, and oranges for dessert, they broke 
into organized rebellion, and descended in a body. These outbreaks 
overwhelmed the girls with confusion, and threw the head of the 
house into great discomfort, and it was then that the junior showed 
himself worth his dinner, rattling off gay stories (gathered from 
many years’ back numbers of the “ Family Herald,” whose ” Ran- 
dom Readings ” supply a section of society with harmless facetiae), 
and otherwise taking upon his own shoulders the burden of enter- 
tainment. 

An incident occurred which made this dinner an historical point 
in the career of Mr. Amelia. It arose in this way. The ladies hav- 
ing withdrawn, and the editor and Mr. Maddox having each set his 
pipe going, the talk drifted about the public affairs of Gallowbay 
until mention of one Major Septimus Heard was made, and the jun- 
ior was found to be suddenly choking with smoke and laughter. 
Being patted on the back by the editor he recovered, and assumed 
an aspect of preternatural gravity until Mr. Flinch, who naturally 
imagined that he was the object of any mirthful manifestation 
which might occur in his neighborhood, took up the matter as being 
personal to himself, and demanded an explanation. 

Being much enforced by Flinch, the junior at length drew from 
his pocket a copy of yesterday’s paper and read gravely: 

“ The gallant major concluded by observing, admidst great ap- 
plause, that however it might recommend itself to the general opin- 
ion, it occurred to him that in goodness lay the only genuine nobility, 
that kind hearts were infinitely preferable to coronets, and that 
simple faith was more to be esteemed than Norman blood.” 

“Flinch,” said the junior, beginning to gasp again, “has been 
editing Tennyson.” 

“ What’s the matter?” cried Mr. Flinch, “ Ah’ve got it on my 
notes. It’s what he said, Mr. Rider. All’ll swear it’s what he 
said, only, of course, he didn’t put it in such flowing language. I 
think,” he added with a touch of pity, “ Maddox is laughin’-mad. 
He’s always on the grin. ” 

“ J)ear me, Mr. Flinch,” said the editor, putting on his glasses 
and reaching out for the paper. “ This is a serious mistake — a verv 
serious error. That is a verse of poetry. Quite a well-known verse 
of poetry. Dear me.” He read it sadly and folded it upon his 
knees. “ What makes it the more lamentable is the fact that Major 
Septimus Heard is sole proprietor of the ‘ AThig. ’ That is a secret, 
gentlemen,” he added a moment later, looking around him with a 
countenance of added distress, “ which I ought never to have re- 
vealed. I was, in point of fact, pledged to sem-ecy about it, but the 
shock of this mistake— dear me. Gentlemen, 1 am sure I may relv 


“THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 


37 

upon you to respect Major Heard’s wishes, though 1 have myself 
been betrayed into an inadvertence.” 

” If he’d only said, ‘ as the poet says,’ ah’d have gone and asked 
him for the quotation,” said Mr. Flinch, defiantly; ” but he didn’t. 
He just reeled it off as if it was out of his own head. And yoii 
know what Pitman says, Mr. Rider— the function of a reporter is to 
make good speeches for bad speakers. That’s what they call the 
peroration, and you always reckon to touch the peroration up a bit. ” 

“Major Heard is a very precise man, indeed,” said the edit, or, 
whose spirits were altogether dashed by the discovery. 

“ It’s nothing, after all, sir,” said the junior, trying to make light 
of it. “I oughtn’t to have mentioned it, but it was nothing but a 
joke to me, and I thought we should all enjoy it. If he comes and 
makes a row about it, sir, tell him I did it. 1 don’t mind.” 

“ A knowledge of general literature,” said the mild man, “ is es- 
sential to journalistic pursuits.” 

“ Ah don’t think,” said Mr. Flinch, with a vengeful look at the 
junior, “ that a man can be expected to have literature at his fingers’ 
ends for thirty shillings a week.” 

“No, Mr. Flinch,” said the 'editor, “not for thirty shillings a 
week, but for the love of knowledge and the charms of fiction and 
the delights of poetry. My brother,” he went on inoffensively, 
“ had a very fine business connection as an ironmonger. He was 
entirely a self-made man, as I am ” — Mr. Amelia smiled — “ and he 
offered me a partnership in the concern ; but though it restricted me 
to narrower means I preferred the literary life. There is not much 
pure literature in the conduct of a weekly newspaper,” he added, 
with his own languid and weary smile; “ but there is a certain men- 
tal atmosphere in it, after all, which one would miss behind an iron- 
monger’s counter. One feels conscious at times of directing the 
minds of the masses.” His wandering glance fell upon the paper 
on his knees, and the look of distress his forehead had worn a min- 
ute or two before returned. ‘‘ Dear me— this is a melancholy error. 
We will say no more about it now, but we must exercise greater 
vigilance in the future.” 

“ I don’t see how anybody cares to live without reading,” said 
the blunder-headed junior, not meaning to tread on anybody’s corns, 
but offending two out of the three who heard him. “ If there were 
no books in the world I’d cut my throat.” 

Mr. Amelia said nothing, but it crossed his mind that in such a 
case the loss of literature would not be without its compensations. 
He was not a young man who liked to feel inferior, and he made up 
his mind that, much as he hated poetry, he must begin to read it as 
a duty. 

“ I’m sorry for poor old Rider,” said the junior, when he and his 
chief left the editor’s house pretty early in the afternoon. “ The 
editorship of the ‘ Whig ’ is a poor berth for a man with a big fam- 
ily. And he’s really a man of very surprising learning. Good 
Latinist — fair Grecian — knows French and German thoroughly— 
knows Orr’s ‘ Circle of the Sciences ’ by heart. You can’t mention 
an event in history but he knows the date of it. ’ ’ 

“General knowledge is a good thing, no doubt,” said Mr. 
Amelia; “ but what’s the use of having a bag of tools if you don’t 


38 ^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

know how to handle them? Money’s a good thing, but it isn’t serv- 
iceable on a desert island — one might suppose that he was born 
there— and there's nothing to buy for all the coins he has gathered. ” 
He walked as if he had deluded himself into the belief that he was 
seven feet high. “A man’s mind must be naturally expert, ” he 
said, “ before any of the tools of knowledge can be useful to him. 
The expert man ” (he was thinking of himself) “ can make use of 
rough and simple tools. The clumsy-minded man may be furnished 
with the most delicate appliances for labor, but he can do nothing.” 

” Rider isn’t a clumsy-minded man, bjr any means,” said Mad- 
dox; and this observation awoke Mr. Amelia to the danger of repos- 
ing too much confidence in the junior. “ He writes very charming 
verses. ’ ’ 

“ Mr. Rider was not in my mind when 1 used the expression,” 
said Mr. Amelia, unblushingly. ” The aphorism was general, and 
was not intended for particular application. ’ ’ 

That sentence was a quotation from Friday’s “Times,” and it 
came in usefully. Mr. Amelia learned a great deal in later years, 
and before he reached his present exalted position his native dexter- 
ity of mind had made informal studies profitable to him ; but at that 
time he could not have told you with any clearness what he sup- 
posed an aphorism to be. It was a good alternative word for “ re- 
mark,” or “ observation,” and it gave an air of finish to the sen- 
tence. Mr. Amelia, who had no great mental stock as yet, contrived 
as good a show for the shop window as his neighbors. He was alert 
in the search for showy goods ; but he was never audacious and 
rarely adventurous in displaying them, so that when they went into 
the window they looked natural there, and persuaded the observer 
that a large assortment might be found within. 

Now this art of seeming to know a great deal whilst knowing 
very little is pre-eminently the journalistic art, and Mr. Amelia had 
done well in selecting journalism as his profession. No man can 
long pursue the calling without learning much (though the cram of 
to-day drives out the cram of yesterday as often as not), but it is not 
necessary to know anything an hour before you handle it for the 
edification of the world. What Sir Blaise Delorme believed was 
“ much, but nowise certain,” and a practiced journalist’s knowledge 
is like Sir Blaise’s belief. Mr. Amelia looked for success with an 
eye almost prophetic in its certainty of vision, but he did not know 
as yet how curiously qualified he was to attain it. 

He and the junior parted, and he went home thinking chiefly of 
Rider’s unfitness for practical struggle with tlie world. That he 
could discover a verse of a popular poem even in the disguise of 
newspaper English was but a poor compensation for his want of 
energy and knowledge of the world. What a much smarter paper 
the “ Whig ” might be if edited by William Amelia than it now was 
— edited by John Hawkes Rider! Mr. Maddox had surprised a secret 
which might be useful to Mr. Amelia, and the little man turned it 
over in his mind. He had once or twice inquired aRer the proprie- 
tors— Mr. Rider had always spoken of proprietors— and he had been 
met with mystery. Now, Major Septimus Heard was a well-known 
figure in Gallowbay, and it was said that at the next election he 
would contest the borough in the Liberal interest. It was known 


39 


‘"THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

that lie had already expressed his intention to retire from active mil- 
itary duties. It vv’oiild undoubtedly be useful to Mr. Amelia that 
Major Heard should know that he had an energetic, smart, and at- 
tentive man as chief of his reporting staff; and here was an oppor- 
tunity for letting him know it. 

It befell next morning that Major Septimus Heard, who was in 
temporary command of his regiment at Bryanstowe, sat at breakfast 
in his own quarters with Jack Clare as his guest. Jack and the 
Major were stanch friends, and the elder was greatly esteemed by 
the younger, who regarded him as being in all things the very soul 
of honor, and made his judgment a final court of appeal in many 
things, as ingenuous young officers will with seniors whom they 
trust and like. The major was elderly, and was thought by some of 
the youngsters of the regiment a shade too grave for a good fellow. 
He had a long hooked nose, a grizzled head, and a great sweeping 
gray mustache which he habitually fondled with his left hand. He 
was terrible to evil-doers, and in the frequent absence of the lieuten- 
ant-colonel, who was often on the sick-list, old offenders trembled at 
the prospect of appearing in the orderly-room, whilst first offenders 
were held to be lucky in coming before him. 

“ Light up,” said the major, thrusting a box of cigars across the 
table, “ and if you don’t mind I’ll have a look at letters.” 

Jack selected a cigar and pushed back the box. The major helped 
himself also, and for the space of two or three minutes there was 
silence, till on a sudden the senior officer arose with a profane ejacu- 
lation. 

“Hillo!” said his companion. “ Anything the matter?” 

Major Heard read to the end of the letter which had so disturbed 
him, and then gravely dropped it before Jack Clare. 

' ‘ Read that,” he said. 

“ It’s marked ‘ private and confidential,’ ” said Jack. 

“Never mind that,” replied the major. “Read it.” Jack be- 
gan. “ Read it aloud,” said the major; “ let us enjoy it together.” 

“ Sir,” read Jack, “ as Chief Reporter of the ‘ Gallowbay 
Whig, ’ 1 was greatly annoyed to observe the absurd close of the re- 
port of your excellent speech which appears in this day’s issue of 
that journal. The report was unfortunately intrusted to a subordi- 
nate member of the staff, who was ignorant of the verse you quoted. 
1 beg to assure you that no such solecism shall again occur. That 
it should have occurred at all naturally points to incompetence in 
more than one direction. I learn from Mr. Rider that you are pro- 
prietor of the ‘ Gallowbay Whig,’ and 1 venture to submit to you 
that Mr. Rider’s business as a stationer and a general printer absorljs 
somewhat too much of his time to permit of his giving such full at- 
tention to its affairs as the prosperity of the journal demands. If 
you should regard the application I now venture to make in a favor- 
able light, 1 shall be glad to devote the whole of ray time and atten- 
tion to the interests of the journal. It is a matter of public rumor 
that at the next election you will contest the borough in the Liberal 
interest, and if this rumor be jnstly founded, it is all the more es- 
sential that the editor of the ‘ Whig ’ should be abreast of the times. 
I am not aware of the rate at which Mr. Rider’s services are remu- 


40 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


nerated, but 1 shall be happy to undertake the position he occupies, 
and to accept a reduction of his salary to the extent of twenty-five 
per cent. 

“ I am, sir, yours very truly, 

“ William Amelia. ” 

“ That,” said the major, pulling at his mustache as if it were a 
bell-rope, “ is what is called by the working-classes ‘ ratting,’ which 
does not mean to hunt rats, but to play the rat. The phrase appears 
to me to be just and appropriate.” 

‘‘ What shall you do about it?” asked Clare, throwing the letter 
on the table. 

” I shall send it to Rider,” said the major, grimly. 

“ Won’t that be rather nasty for the fellow that wrote the letter?” 
Jack demanded. “ Besides, he marks it ‘ private.’ ” 

” Do you tell me. Captain Clare,” cried the grizzled major, “ that 
you w'ould respect the appeal for privacy from an assassin like this, 
sir? A snake in the grass, begad, sir, who — who bites the hand that 
feeds him? Why, sir, would 5 ’'Ou believe it, this man Rider, who is 
a very estimable* man indeed, a very estimable man, has held the 
position for twelve years, and he gave this young man who now 
addresses me, employment? Gave employment, sir, to the man who 
now tries to undermine him! Respect Ins appeal for privacy, sir? 
No. I will teach the young man a lesson.” 

With that he cleared a space upon the table, and setting down a 
writing-desk upon it proceeded, with occasional ejaculations of 

low scoundrel,” and ” I’ll teach the fellow,” to wu’ite two notes, 
which, when finished, he read aloud, with fiery emphasis. The first 
was addressed to Mr. Amelia, and ran thus: 

” Sir,— 1 have forwarded your polite letter to Mr. Rider. — Septi- 
mus Heard.” 

The second read ; 

“ My dear Rider, — 1 received the inclosed this morning, and 
have no more respect for the writer’s desire for secrecy than I should 
have if 1 saw him trying to pick another man’s pocket in a more 
usual way. I have informed him of the fact that 1 have forwarded 
this letter to you. I may take this opportunity of expressing my 
most cordial approval of the manner in which the ‘ Whig ’ is con- 
ducted.” And then, ” 1 am, my dear Rider, yours sincerely,” fol- 
lowed by the signature of a man who writes with a broad quill in 
angry earnest. Having declaimed these epistles, with much striding 
to and fro, and frequent wavings of his cigar, the major strode to 
the table and dashed off a postscripts ” Give the fellow a month’s 
wages and send him about his business.” This he also declaimed, 
and having enveloped the letters, rang his bell, and on the servant’s 
appearance ordered him to the post at once. “ Begad, sir,” he cried, 
turning upon Jack Clare, who was smiling at the major’s wrath, 
” that any man should dare to address such an epistle to me is an 
insult to my honor. Does the fellow take me for a huckster with 
his infernal bribe of twenty-five per cent? Confound him!” 

When on that same Monday afternoon Mr. Rider met the postman 


“THE WAY OF THE WORLD, 41 

at his door and took fiom his hand two letters addressed in the 
characters of Major Septimus Heard, he felt that his time had come. 
He was by nature a neiwous and self-distrustful man, and lie was 
persuaded within himself that the proprietor had sent him his dis- 
missal, and had by the same post conferred brevet rank upon Mr. 
Amelia. There was no other hypothesis on which he could ground 
a reason for the two letters, and for a time he feared to open his 
own. Then it occurred to him that Mr. Amelia was upstairs in the 
office, and he might perhaps venture a guess as to the; nature of his 
own letter if the chief reporter read his first. So with a fast-beating 
heart he ascended the narrow staircase and pushed aside the door. 

“ A letter for you, Mr. Amelia.” 

The handwriting was strange to Mr. Amelia, and he opened the 
envelope with no emotion, but reading the contents of the letter at 
a glance he started, and stared at Rider with so curious an aspect 
that the poor man took his fears for certainties, and moved dejected- 
ly with bent head into his own den. When at last he dared to open 
the missive addressed to himself the first words that met his eyes 
were, “ cordial approval of the manner in which the ‘ Whig ’ is con- 
ducted.” Was it all a mistake, then? He read the letter and its 
postcript and then turned to the inclosure. This fairly staggered 
him, because to his simple and unselfish mind it looked like perady, 
and he had never met anybody who had acted perfidiously before. He 
did not know how to deal with the case, and the thought of meeting 
Mr. Amelia and putting him to further shame was intolerable to his 
meek and easy-going nature. It seemed to him inevitable that a 
man detected in such a proceeding should be ashamed, but he did 
not take it into his scheme of the thing at all that Mr. Amelia might 
think otherwise. 

That young gentleman’s mental attitude was one of almost un- 
mitigated amazement. He was shocked — unaffectedly shocked at 
the conduct of Major Septimus Heard, and for a moment his belief 
in human rectitude was scattered ; but his amazement trandscended 
the shock. Major Heard was spoken of by everybody as a man of 
honor ! That he himself had done a mean thing did not even occur 
to him. Probably it was impossible that such an idea should ap- 
proach him in any circumstances, for he was quite persuaded that if 
a thing seemed mean to him he would not do it. Of course he had 
not desired the editor to know of his efforts to supplant him, how- 
ever it might have turned out; but his offer was a fair one and in 
the way of business, and he felt bitterly that a confidential communi- 
cation had been shamelessly abused. Well! he would know better 
with whom to trust the secret of his desires in future! Major Sep- 
timus Heard and Mr. Rider were probably friends, and being friends 
were probably birds of a feather. It was a pity to have sacrificed 
his place, for he saw clearly that he would have to go. Taking it 
altogether, he felt as if he had been martyred. 

It is a little curious, seeing for what a length of time the world 
has been goinff, that there never has been any serious recognition of 
the fact that ‘virtue is the most fluid of all qualities. Did it ever 
enter the mind of any philosopher to say that virtue is identical with 
self -approval? If a man were conscious of no inward virtue he 
would die. Even remorse raises a man to the height of his own 


42 


^‘the way of the world. 


>7 


heart, and tells him that there is something in him which can scorn 
baseness, though the baseness be his own. 

Mr. Amelia felt that he had been betrayed. 

When the shy, mild editor at last found strength of mind to creep 
from his den and laid Major Heard’s letter before him, together with 
its inclosure, he felt ill at ease and humiliated, but undeservedly. 
When ;Mr. Rider, without a word, handed him an open check fol* 
eight pounds, drawn on the Gallowbay Bank, he understood that 
this was his dismissal, and went his way. He cashed the check, 
and called at the post-office on his way to his lodgings. There he 
procured an order for two pounds, the promised quarter of his sal- 
ary. He wrote a dutiful letter to his mother, telling her that his 
engagement at the “ Gallowbay Whig ” had come to an unfortunate 
close; that he had a little money in hand ,and sent her a share of it, 
and assured her of his best efforts for her future and his own. Then 
he packed up his small belongings, paid his landlady an arranged 
percentage on her claim for a week’s notice, and took train for 
London. 

“ I have learned a lesson,” he said to himself; and truly, though 
it was not the lesson many men would have learned. ” This need 
not turn out a misfortune, after all. At any rate, 1 can try one back 
fall with London.” 


CHAPTER VI. 

Fleet Street (the ear of England) listens day and night to the 
clicking of electric messengers, who travel over great tracts of land, 
and under ocean spaces, with tidings of peace and war, of the 
coronations and deaths of kings, of the rise in jute and the fall in 
indigo. Keen-faced men sitting walled away from the coqBtant 
racket of traffic, say to the special correspondent “go,” and straight- 
way he goeth, to New York, to Vienna, to Timbuctoo, to Kam- 
schatka, to the celebration of a century of republican freedom, to the 
silver wedding of a royal couple, to famine, pestilence, or war. And 
the keen-faced men say to the leader-writer “ come,” and he cometh, 
and at the word of command sitteth down to teach ministers the 
art of government, generals the art of war, and the whole race of 
grandmothers the art of sucking eggs. Here the great human pas- 
sion of Gossip, cramped no longer, finds room and breathing space. 
The world tells Fleet Street everything, and Fleet Street tells the 
world again, with tagged surmises, comments, diatribes, and ex- 
hortations. There are in Fleet Street full a hundred temples to this 
great human passion of gossip, and in every one of them, the greiit 
high priest, and all the lesser priests, and all the acolytes (called 
reporters), listen and babble, listen and babble, listen and babble 
without ceasing from one year’s end to another. 

Mr. Amelia, passing through Temple Bar for the first time, knew 
that he had come upon these magic precincts, and his keen glance 
wandered hither and- thither as he walked, reading the names of 
scores of journals, to the fortunes of any one of which he was will- 
ing to attach himself. 

“The traditional lord mayor,” he said to himself, “always 


‘‘the way of the woeld/^ 43 

comes to London with one half-crown in his pocket. 1 start with 
forty and a spare twopence.” 

He felt in his waistcoat pocket for his solitary five-pound note, 
and assured himself of its continued presence there. He trod the 
pavement like a gamecock, and felt that he had come to conquer, 
lie was resolved to conquer, but resolution gave him no cue, and he 
could not guess where to attack. He walked until he came to Lud- 
gate Hill, and standing at the foot saw and recognized the great 
dome of St. Paul’s. He needed these occasional reminders to as- 
sure him that he was really in London. 

The Farringdon Road was useless to him, the Blackfriars Road 
offered him nothing, Ludgate was barren for his purposes. He 
turned back toward Temple Bar and took the foothpath on the 
right-hand side. Here he jostled against a great author, whom he 
recognized by his likeness to the published portraits of him, and 
that momentary contact seemed a thing of good omen. A moment 
later he saw the name of a certain chop-house inscribed upon a lamp 
which hung over a narrow, covered way; a house famous among 
pressmen for a generation or two, and, even at this day, supposed in 
country places to harbor the very genius of journalism, though in 
reality the tide of fashion has fallen aw^ from it and left it high 
and dry. Bohemia’s citadel is deserted. The great MacGuffog, the 
amiable Dexter, supposed to know by heart the reference library at 
the museum, and crowned king of ready writei-s; Wobbler of the 
droll wit and strident voice, fresh from the law courts with a new 
story of how he had set down the Bench, and now away to write his 
daily funny leader; — these and many of the rest are yet alive, but 
the clubs have caught them, or they love the home armchair too well 
to leave it for the sawdusted floor and the bleared gleam of the gas 
that winks against the dreary daylight in that old resort. You may 
as well seek the big-wigged guests of the days of Queen Anne, who, 
as almost everybody knows, are dead and buried, like their royal 
mistress. 

In Mr. Amelia’s first days in London the house was still the oc- 
casional resort of people eminent in the journalistic world, and it 
was not without reasonable hope of rubbing shoulders with some 
one or two of them that he entered, and standing at the cramped 
little bar-window — ^vanished now like the guests who used to stand 
about it— demanded a glass of pale ale, and paid his twopence. A 
portly man, with brown eyes full of fun, was telling a story to 
half-a-dozen listeners, who gathered close to catch the subdued tones 
of the narrator, and every now and again broke away from him to 
laugh with bent shoulders and stamping feet. Mr. Amelia, arguing 
from the brown eyes and the look of humor, thought this might 
possible be the great Dexter, but suddenly the narrator broke off 
short with a cry of “ Dexter, come here,” and the novice saw the 
great man, mild-eyed, white-waistcoated, with a flower at his but- 
tonhole. The other, who could thus familiarly hail him, must cer- 
tainly be somebody out of the common. Whilst the story was re- 
told, the undersiz^, red-headed waiter scattered the group without 
concern, and flung unintelligible orders upstairs, while chop-house 
guests, full or hungry, jostled them on their way to or from the 
eating-room. 


44 ‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

By-and-by two new-comers, who nodded familiarly at the great 
■ones — assuredly great because in Dexter’s company — attracted Mr. 
Amelia’s attention, and their conversation, which was carried on in 
a loud tone, became interesting to him. 

“Ye tould me,” said one, “ that Barney was out o’collar.” 

“ So he is,” said the other, “ and in deadly low water tew.” 

“ Anybody might know 5 ’^ou were a poet,” said the first, “ be the 
lovely mingling of your similes. What’s he doin’? ” 

“ Oi left ’m chewin’ his silver toothpick. Divil the thing else is 
left ’m to chew.” 

“Gammon!” cried the first speaker. “What’s a man want to 
sit down for, and grind his teeth for need p’ grist in London? A 
journalist that knows his way about is loike Autolycus, me boy, 
if ever ye heard o’ the gentleman. There’s matter for a hot brain 
everywhere. Every lane’s end, every shop, church, session, hang- 
ing, yields a careful man work. If 1 were out o’ collar, what do ye 
think I’d do? Sit down and chew a toothpick? Not I, when there’s 
half-a-guinea to be earned for an occasional note for the ‘ Piccadilly,’ 
— a stickful o’ matter, and no more.” 

“That’s all right,” said the second; “but where to find the 
stickful?” 

“ Where to find it? Anywhere! Prowl round St. Paul’s till ye 
find a statue with its nose knocked off. Then go to the Headin’ 
Boom at the British Museum, and find out all about the broken 
nose’s original, and do twelve lines of public virtue in English, 
lamenting the decay into which the memorial of the hero or divine, 
or whatever he is, has been allowed to fall. Work at the thing for 
a week, if you loike. Dew an orticle about it, chopped into nice 
little pars, so that the editor can stick ’em in among the notes. 
When ye’ve done that, come to me and I’ll give y’ a tip a day for 
twelve months, gratis. There’s just one little requirement they have 
at that same office of the ‘Piccadilly,’ though, an’ maybe Bar- 
ney’s a little weak-kneed there.” 

“ What is it?” 

“ English. The well of English undef oiled, me choild. Not Re- 
portese, but English pure and simple! — unadorned, like this.” De 
held up his glass and eyed it fondly. “ Bill,” he said, with sud- 
den feeling — he had spoken until now with a light and almost 
sportive manner — “ it’s the best whisky in London.” 

Mr. Amelia finished his modest glass of bitter beer, and found 
himself again in Fleet Street, conscious that he had not invested his 
twopence unworthily. He felt inclined to run to St. Paul’s Cathe- 
dral, lest the unknown Barney should be before him. Half-a-guinea 
for a dozen lines! Could that stupendous news be true? London 
was indeed paved with gold if one had the eyes to see it. Autoly- 
cus — if that were the name of the person whom the Irish gentleman 
had mentioned — was undoubtedly right. Matter for a hot brain 
everywhere — every lane’s end yielding work! He would buy the 
“ Piccadilly” before he wrote a line, would study it, and master its 
style. English? Well, he thought he could write English. That 
is a common delusion. 

There were no statues with broken noses in St, Paul’s, but there 
were some signs of dilapidation and decay, which he carefully 


45 


^^THE WAY OF THE WOULD.’’ 

noted — quite enough to justify the call of popular attention. Some 
of the worthies whose monuments were thus neglected he had heard 
of, othei-s were strange to him, hut he booked them all, and got 
away to the British Museum Library in time to find it closed. His 
journey, however, was not altogether fruitless, for he learned the 
form of the necessary application for a reader’s ticket, and sent it in 
that evening. All night and all next day, whilst by a temporary 
permit he explored the library shelves, he was haunted by the vision- 
ary Barney- Any of the men who sat at the silent stalls reading 
and writing might be Barney; any one of the cluster of ladies might 
be his locum teruns, his wife, sister, or other feminine aid. 

He wrote his notes on the neglected memorials in the library itself, 
and he trimmed them as well as he could. At Gallowbay he had 
been told that he wrote a fair sub-leader, and before Gallowbay he 
had felt himself warranted in advertising himself as a smart parag- 
raphist; but between the provinces and London there is a gulf, and 
the thought that he was writing for the “ Piccadilly ” made him 
nervous, and almost for the first time in his life self-distrustful. 

This, however, was so unaccustomed a sensation, and so little 
native to him, that it soon withered, and as he walked to the office 
of the journal, bearing his copy and a neat little letter to the editor, 
his spirits rose higher and higher, until it seemed that the baseness 
of Major Septimus Heard had really made the fortune of the major’s 
victim. He handed his small packet to an uninterested boy behind 
a counter, and went home to await the result. He bought the 
“ Piccadilly ” that evening and next day with no effect but that of 
disappointment, and had begun to nourish the poorest opinion of the 
judgment of the famous journalist who presided over its destinies. 
But on the third day he ventured another penny, and lo! he was in 
type in a London journal. A fig for Gallowbay! A fico for tlie 
world and worldlings base — like Major Septimus Heard. It dashed 
him a little to find his superfine sentences all rewritten, but his hand 
was still recognizable, and when the first sense of chagi'in was over 
he set himself to discern the difference between his draft and the 
printed paragraph, and to make out the reason of it. To believe in 
himself so profoundly as he did, and yet have common sense and 
humility enough for that, argued well for his chances of advance- 
ment. He told himself so, though in another w-ay. 

“ I wonder if that gentleman is still chewing his silver toothpick,” 
he said, with a triumphant sense of humor, when he thought of the 
visionary Barney, probably still out of collar. It seemed something 
of a wonder to him that he had ever fancied it worth his while to be 
editor of the ‘‘ Gallowbay Whig,” when in his first three days in 
London he had been able to find foothold in a place so lofty. 

This question of public monuments could not yet be worn out, and 
he decided to exploit it thoroughly. Westminster Abbey should be 
his next stalking-ground. 

His little cuffs and his collar were spotlessly white and irreproach- 
ably unwrinkled, his own hands had polished his neat little boots, 
a merveille, his hat was brushed, and his umbrella was rolled with 
scrupulous exactness. The day, for London, was lovely, and Mr. 
Amelia, though he took little note of the manifestations of nature 
-•cither in town or country, was sensible to her influences, and walked 


46 


^‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 

the more briskly for the brightness of the weather. He reached the 
stately old pile, and plunged into it business-like, intent on ten and 
sixpence per paragraph. The organ was rolling a solemn wind of 
sound, and the voices of the choir- boys were soaring in it, while the 
echoes murmured of the peace which only dwells within hearing of 
choir and organ in sacred places. Peace has many moods, but the 
peace of the abbey and the cathedral is theirs alone. With his hat 
in one hand and his umbrella in the other, Mr. Amelia paced the 
various aisles, and kept a keen eye on the main chance, but by and 
by a verger laid a hand on him, and directed him to be seated until 
the service should be over. Obeying this injunction, and beguiling 
the time by an examination of the scattered worshipers, he became 
aware of Mr. Bolsover Kimberley, who sat, with his shy whiskers 
drooping, and his meek eyes turned toward the roof, on a bench to 
Mr. Amelia’s right. He was attired in gorgeous raiment, in which 
he would have looked as appropriate, perhaps, beneath the light of 
the sacred lamp of burlesque, as in that of the stained windows of 
the Abbey, but his mood was unmistakably devotional. He had 
forgotten himself and his clothes and the dreadful weight of his 
money, and he was away on the wings of the music as high as his 
poor little heart could carry him. His figure was very meekly 
curled, the tips of his toes just reached the fioor, and his gloved 
hands lay in his lap. He smiled feebly at the ceiling, and there was 
a glint of moisture in his eyes. 

A month or two ago Mr. Amelia, whose high sense of his own 
deserving did not prompt him to a ready belief in the deserts ol other 
people, would have snubbed Mr. Kimberley if he had encountered 
him, and Kimberley would have accepted the snubbing as his due. 
But now, though he knew his history, and though & had often 
thought despitef ully of him, and thought his attitude at this moment 
ludicrous, there was a dignity in the sense of the man’s possessions 
which made it difficult to despise him. Mr. Amelia felt that if he 
had inherited money he could have carried it with abetter grace, but 
you can gild a man so thickly with a million and a quarter sterling 
that you can half cover the defects, even of a creature like Kimberley. 
When the service came to an end, the little millionaire wiped his eyes 
furtively and with a look of shame, and then glancing about him 
met the eyes of Mr. William Amelia. He recognized him with a 
blush and a forward duck of the head, and Mr. Amelia responded by 
advancing with outstretched hand. 

‘ ‘ Lovely weal her, Mr. Kimberley, ’ ’ he said. ‘ ‘ 1 had the pleasure 
of meeting you in Gallowbay at the ‘ Windgall Arms.’ ” 

“ Yes, ” said Kimberley, shaking hands, ‘ ‘ I remember. Beautiful 
this is, sir, isn’t it?” 

” Gloomy,” said Mr. Amelia, glancing round. 

“ Oh, do you think so?” asked Kimberley. “ 1 should have 
thought a literarj gentleman would appreciate it.” 

“ Noble building,” responded Mr. Amelia, ” undoubtedly. One 
of the finest specimens of ecclesiastical architecture in fJie world. 
But — gloomy.” 

“ 1 don’t think,” said Kimberlej^, “ it would be so nice if it wasn’t 
gloomy.” Then he shrank within himself, fearing to bethought 
sentimental. To Mr. Amelia the place was big and rather ill-lighted, 


^‘THE WAY OF THB WORLD.” 47 

and there was an end of the matter; but to Kimberley there was 
majesty and the sacred peace of age in the stone vistas and the lofty 
roof, though he could not say so and would not have dared even had 
he been able. 

It was a constant habit of Mr. Amelia’s to put himself shoulder 
to shoulder with anybody he encountered in a position better than his 
own, and to ask himself in what way they adorned the station more 
than he himself would have done. Concerning Kimberley, such a 
question could of course find but one answer. The man was a snob 
— gild him as thickly as you pleased, he would remain a snob — ^he 
had the accent, the aspect, the taste in dress of a snob. Mr. Amelia 
naturally regarded all men from a lofty standpoint, but it was a little 
hard on the world at large to be contrasted with William Amelia, 
when William Amelia settled not only the world’s demerits but liis 
own deservings. 

However undeserving Kimberley might be, he had still a million 
and a quarter ; and though his momentaiy companion had no hope 
of drawing from him one penny of his money, and though he honestly 
despised the money’s owner, he was yet glad to know him, and would 
have been pleased to be seen in his society. It flattered him that 
Kimberley follow'ed him when he moved away and began to inspect 
the monuments, and to enter short-hand observations of them in the 
big reporter’s note-book he carried. 

“ 1 suppose that’s short hand, sir,” said the millionaire to the re- 
porter, in a respectful murmur. The reporter nodded crisply and 
went on with his notes. How many things there were in the world, 
thought Kimberley, of which he knew nothing, and could never 
hope to know anything! If only his money had come sooner I — if he 
had been born with it, and had been so reared and taught that he 
could fill the place it set him in! 

He followed Mr. Amelia about whilst that young gentleman com- 
pleted his tour of the place, and now and again the inspector of 
monuments dropped him a crisp word or two about the more decayed 
ones. The history of the Abbey is readily accessible at the Museum 
Library, and Mr. Amelia, who had been at it the day before, Icnew 
a good deal about the place — knew it for the moment, that is, re- 
porter’s fashion — and Kimberley had unquestioning faith. It was 
very kind of so clever a young man to take notice of him. He felt 
this the more strongly because Mr. Amelia was not respectful, as 
almost everybody had been since he became a millionaire. He was 
not used to being treated with consideration, and the self-ingratiatory 
kotowings with which people greeted him made him miserable. It 
was refreshing to meet one man who treated him as he had always 
been used to be treated, who thought him of no particular account 
and was simply civil with him. 

When the walk was over Kimberley followed Mr. Amelia still, 
and, being by this time almost at his ease, ventured to beg a favor. 

“ I don’t know whether it’s in your line, sir,” he said, “ but if 
you would be so good as to answer a letter for me I should be very 
much obliged to you.” 

JMr. Amelia intimated that at this moment his time was unusually 
valuable. 


48 ^'THE WAY OF THE WOELD.” 

“Oh!” said Kimberley, ill at ease again, “ I shouldn’t dream of 
asking a professional gentleman to give me his time for nothing.” 

“ A guinea,” said Mr. Amelia, tentatively, “ is the lowest usual 
professional charge, ’ ’ If the millionaire shied at that, an abatement 
might be made. 

“Yes,” said Kimberley readily. “A guinea? Oh yes, with 
pleasure. It’ll be worth a" five-pound note to me to ’ave it oft my 
mind. I’m sure, if you’ll be so good as to do it for me.” 

Mr. Amelia felt that he had suffered from his own modesty. The 
sensation was novel and disagreeable. 

“Will you kindly come to my hotel, sir?” asked Kimberley. “ I 
fould have got a professional gentleman to do it, a week ago, but 1 
didn’t know where to go to get it done, and it isn’t nice to have to 
explain things, is it? At least, I don’t suppose you’d mind it.” 

He blushed and rubbed his gloved fingers together. 

“ What is the nature of the letter you wish me to answer?” asked 
Mr. Amelia in a business tone. Kimberley stopped in the street to 
grope in his breast pocket, and, producing a letter, handed it to his 
companion. The little man took it, stuck his neatly-folded umbrella 
under his arm, and walked on slowly, reading as he went. Horatio 
Nelson Blandy addressed his dear Mr. Kimberley to the effect that 
his fellow- townsmen of Gallowbay had thought fit (in view of the 
amicable relations which had for years subsisted between Kimterley 
and himself) to nominate him as chairman of a committee which had 
for its purpose the organization of a public reception on a grand scale 
— including fireworks and a banquet — of their eminent townsman, 
than whom, etc. Mr. Amelia skipped the compliments. That the 
committee begged Mr. Kimberley to name his own day, and assured 
him of the deep and widespread gratification with which the inhabit- 
ants of his native town, etc. 

“ This is the hotel, sir,” said Kimberley, as Mr. Amelia folded the 
letter and returned it to its envelope. The manager stood in the hall 
and bowed and rubbed his hands at Mr. Kimberley. The waiters 
and the hall-porter bowed also, and a gorgeous lady in a glass case 
smirked and nodded. The little millionaire and his little visitor 
went upstairs side by side, and a waiter in the first-floor corridor 
beholding them ran forward and opened the door of a magnificent 
solitary apartment gorgeous with mirrors and ormolu, a Turkey 
carpet and furniture upholstered in amber satin. Mr. Amelia had 
never before seen such a chamber, and if its accustomed guest had 
been at all in accord with it, he would have been bowed down in 
spirit before the furniture. But Kimberley was a snob, and Mr. 
Amelia was still possessed of his own soul. 

“ Do you desire to accept this invitation?” asked Mr. Amelia, set- 
ting his hat and umbrella on the table. 

“No,” said Kimberley, with an air of alarmed decision. “I 
couldn’t — really. No. 1 want you, please, to write a letter saying 
1 ’m very much obliged, but 1 can’t accept a public reception. I 
couldn’t bear it. And say, please, how obliged I feel. They’ll put 
it in both the papers,” said Kimberley, with a miserable aspect, “ and 
that’s what 1 am so particular for. But you write for the papers reg- 
ular, and 5^ou’ll know what to say.” 

Mr. Amelia is older now by several years than he was when he first 


49 


“THE WAY OF THE WOliliD.’’ 

entered upon life in London, and his ideas of literary grace have un- 
dergone some change, but at that date he was under the impression 
that long words were always to be preferred to short ones. Kim- 
berley rejoiced in the roll of the imposing sentences when their author 
read them over, and felt that anything he might do or leave undone 
must seem good to those who heard his intentions announced in tones 
so lofty. Even Mr. Amelia, who got through the business with the 
modest confidence of a man to whom such an effort was an affair of 
every day, was pleased with his own workmanship. When Kim- 
berley sat down to transcribe the letter from Mr. Amelia’s dictation, 
he felt almost affectionate in his gratitude to his assistant, and the 
long words looked splendid in the trim legal hand in which he set 
them down. But when he regretted, clerically, that an acceptance 
of the committee’s generous and flattering proposal would be in- 
compatible with engagements upon which he had already entered, 
he felt a twinge of conscience, and paused, with the end of the pen- 
holder between his teeth, to remember that he had entered into no 
engagements whatever. But suddenly, as stronger men have done 
before him, he determined to atone for a venial falsehood by a good 
deed to follow, and he wrote on elaborately until the end of the final 
paragraph. 

“ There’s something else which 1 should like to add, sir,” he said 
then. “ 1 think there might be a banquet — to the poor people in the 
town. ’ ’ It warmed him to think of it, but his heart was not so warm 
as his cheeks. He blushed as he spoke, and felt generously ashamed. 

” A sop to Cerberus,” said Mr. Amelia to himself. He did not 
know who Cerberus was, but the phrase was warranted, and came 
from his mde-mecum, the “Times.” “He’s afraid to go, but he 
wants to be popular.” He took his pen once more and added a 
pol 3 "syllabic sentence or two. 

“ Whilst regretting my personal inability to be present at the pro- 
posed festivities, I should nevertheless be rejoiced if a scheme could 
be proposed which would render their abandonment unnecessary. 
Such a scheme might perhaps be found in a general invitation to the 
respectable indigent population of Gallowbay to a banquet to be given 
in my name and at my Expense. Should this proposal meet the ap- 
proval of the gentlemen who have so generously addressed me. 1 shall 
conceive myself especially honored if they will kindly undertake the 
preparation of the feast.” 

“ Ask Mr. Blandy to take the chair, please,” said Kimberley, when 
Mr. Amelia had read this out to him. 

“ And,” murmured Mr. Amelia, as he wrote, “ if an 3 dhing could 
add to the gratification your acceptance of this modified arrangement 
would convey to me, it would be the intelligence that you 3 ’-oui*self 
had consented to preside upon an occasion so interesting. ’ ’ 

“1 think I’d stop at ‘preside,’” suggested Kimberley. Mr. 
Amelia made the alteration. His client took up his pen in turn, and 
the copy was fairly written. 

“ I’m very much obliged to you, I’m sure, sir,” said the million- 
aire, surveying tl»e letter with a charmed eye. “ 1 shall be glad if 
you don’t ’appen to ’ave any change,” he added awkwardly, as he 
blushingly drew forth his pocket-book and passed a five-pound note 


50 ^-THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

across the table to Mr, Amelia. That gentleman accepted it as if the 
crisp leaves lay as thickly in his own path as in Kimberley’s. 

“ You are a generous paymaster, Mr. Kimberley,” he said, as he 
. pocketed the note. 

“ Well, I’m very much obliged to you,” answered the blushing 
Kimberley, ” and I’m sure you’ve expressed what I wanted to say 
beautiful. And,” he added awkwardly, ” it isn’t anything to me — 
not now.” 

A millionaire? thought Mr. Amelia. And a snob into the bargain ! 
A snob inside and out. A most ostentatious snob. But poor Kim- 
berley had meant no more by this clumsy sentence than to say that 
he was really paying very little for a valuable service. Luckily, he 
had no idea of the scorn he had excited, and parted from Mr. 
Amelia with renewed profession of thanks, having first secured his 
address in case he should need to write any more letters which were 
likely to be published. 

Then, having taken luncheon, he walked to the jeweler’s to con- 
sult him concerning a scarf-pin he had ordered. This especial article 
of jewelry is worth a word, partly because it had an influence — a 
very curious influence — on Kimberley’s career, and partly for its in- 
trinsic merit. It was a bulldog’s head, carved in lava, and not quite 
life-size. The dog’s eyes were represented by rubies, and the collar 
was of gold and brilliants. From the collar depended a chain of 
gold which could be attached to the lower part of the pin to secure 
it when it was stuck in the scarf, so that any marauder who might 
covet it would have to snatch scarf and all before he could make 
away with it. 

This egregious jewel was of his own designing, and was of a piece 
with his general notions of how a millionaire should attire himself. 
He was audacious in the matter of personal adornment, and the 
courage with which he w’ent ahead of his time in neckties was like 
that of desperation. He hooped and cabled and bolted himself with 
chains and rings and pins, for by this time he was in full command 
of his immense fortune, and at any hour of the day he was pawnable 
for five hundred pounds. 

"W ith all this he was trying to acquire sqmething of the ways of 
men of the world, and the attempt made him very unhappy. He 
walked in the Eow, and people stared at him and'pointed him out 
one to another. This made him miserable, for he had neither savoir 
faire nor the insolence which passes for it. He had found some 
companions, but no friends, and in their society he had eaten luxuri- 
ous dinners and had drunk rare wines. His companions enjoyed 
them, and he paid for them, and they made him ill. He smoked 
cigars of the finest brands, and they disagreed with him. He ta^gan 
to learn riding, and he suffered; he began to learn billiards, and he 
lost. 

He was a coward; and yet every day of his life he faced dangers 
as great to him as those of the battle-field would have been, for 
nothing could have struck a keener terror to his soul than to face 
the ordinary passengers in the street when he had glorified himself 
with all the most extravagant devices he could think of. He felt this 
terror now, and he dodged into the jeweler’s shop like a guilty 
creature. At the very instant at which he entered the door a cab 


'•THE WAY JOE THE WUliLl).*’ 


51 


drew up at’the curbstone, and a passenger leapt from it carrying 
something in his hands, and jostled against Kimberley. This was a 
day for meetings. The little millionaire looked round apologetically, 
and confronted the Earl of Windgall. 

His lordship, though commonly self-possessed enough, looked like 
a man detected in a theft, and shook hands with a tremor and con- 
fusion which were obvious even to Kimberley 

“ Can you spare me half an hour?” asked his lordship. ” Excuse 
me for a moment. ’ ’ He hurried into the shop, placed upon the 
counter the little package he carried, and positively stammered at the 
shopman whilst he fumbled for his card. “ Take care of that. It 
is valuable. 1 am pressed for time just now, but 1 will call to- 
morrow and give instructions. ’ ’ 

“Yes, my lord,” said the shopman, catching sight of the name 
upon the card and bowing. 

“ Can you spare me a word or two, Mr. Kimberley?” asked Wind- 
gall, with a return to his ordinary maimer, 

“ Certainly, my lord,” said Kimberley, nervously. 

“ Where shall we go?” asked his lordship lightly. “Shall we 
drive to my club?” 

“Will you come to my hotel, my lord?” asked Kimberley, won- 
dering what my lord would have to say to him, and altogether flut- 
tered by this unexpected encounter. 

Windgall assented, and the drove away together. 


CHAPTER VII. 

The Earl of Windgall was in very serious trouble when he met 
Kimberley. He had been in serious trouble for a long time, but 
within the last eight-and-forty hours things had grown almost des- 
perate for him. When Messrs, Begg, Batter, and Bagg, who were 
among the safest and least venturesome of financial advisers, had set 
an actual limit to the poor peer’s borrowings, and had told him that 
he had come to the end of his tether, he had borrowed without their 
knowledge, and at heavy interest, from a member of the friendly 
tribes resident in Gallowbay— a thing sufficiently indiscreet in every 
way. A judicious man would never borrow at his own gates if he 
could help it, but the earl was so pressed that he had not time to be 
judicious. In borrowing he had even felt himself impelled to dis- 
guise certain facts which were perfectly well known to the lender, 
and were accounted for in the scheme of interest, but unfortunately 
their concealment gave the creditor a power over his debtor. There 
is an oftense known to the English law as the Obtaining of Money 
under False Pretenses, and if the Earl of Windgall had not actually 
been guilty of that offense he had sailed so near it that in his inmost 
heart he felt guilty. He had been a proud and honorable man, and 
hunted by less pressing financial troubles he would have been proud 
and honorable still. There is the pity of it. This is the curse of 
poverty, that it blunts the keen edge of honor and lowers the stand- 
ard of honest pride. 

Mr. Clarence G. Sheeney was not a monster of fiction, but a mod- 
ern Israelite of British breeding. He was a fattishman, with a head 


52 "^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

of curly black liair, a face clean shaven, and a perennial smile. He 
looked — but was not — guileless, and he was engaged in many specu- 
lations which demanded foresight, courage, and coolness. There 
were the most contradictory rumors afloat regarding him, and whilst 
on the one side people spoke of him as a man of prodigious wealth, 
others alleged that he was all but insolvent, and spoke darkly of 
times when he was puzzled to pay the very tradespeople who sup- 
plied his household with meat and bread and the other necessities of 
daily life. He lived in good style, kept a good stable, and a house- 
ful of servants; had a generous table, subscribed to local charities 
with great liberality but strange fitfulness, and dispensed an ostenta- 
tious hospitality to all kinds of queer people — now entertaining with- 
in his own walls the Nonconformist divines of the county, and now 
in a great tent on his grounds feeding the Volunteer force of Gallow- 
bay, then just newly established. He entertained the Fire Brigade, 
he entertained the Amalgamated Association of Railway Porters, he 
gave a Foresters’ Fete, and he gathered together the Oddfellows and 
the Bufialoes. It was rumored that he meant one of these days to 
contest the county, and that he w'as preparing beforehand by all 
these works of munificence. All the people who liked to look on 
the dark side of things prophesied bankruptcy for him ; and all the 
people who liked to think of riches, even in another man’s possession, 
talked of him as a Croesus. The plain truth of the matter is that he 
was nearly always involved in speculations to the very limit of his 
means, and that he never knew when he might not come to busines 
WTeck. He gambled with thousands and thousands of pounds as if 
he were playing at chuck-farthing. When he won (and he seemed 
generally to win) he went double or quits. He would have a dozen 
ventures on hand at a time, and nobody ever saw him ruffled or 
anxious. He was always rosy, smiling, and happy to look at, and 
he was always going to make a glorious victorious haul, or be cleaned 
out completely. 

Now it chanced that on a sudden Mr. Clarence G. Sheeney had 
found two of his adventures exceptionally fortunate, and was looking 
about for a new chance of double or quits with Fate, when, with a 
crash and a rattle, two others fell about his ears. Each of these in- 
volved a lawsuit, and Mr, Sheeney’s name being at this time ques- 
tioned in many places, everybody began to pelt him, and he was 
much put to it to keep his head above water. In this momentary 
extremity he cast his arms abroad and clutched those who were near- 
est to him. One building speculator surrendered his life-buoy and 
sank — went down into the deep and appeared no more. The poor 
Earl of Windgall, being clutched, protested that he had no life-buoy 
to lend, not even of the smallest. Then the financier whispered in 
his ear, and he saw not merely bankruptcy but disgrace before him, 
and was almost persuaded to throw up his hands and sink at once. 

To escape from the metaphor, which begins to run some risk of 
growing contused, Mr. Sheeney really wanted his money, must have, 
would have his money in this crisis of his afiairs, would at least have 
one-half of it, one thousand sterling pounds, within a week, or — 

The demand, the protest, and the new demand were all made by 
letter, and the earl had done his best to conceal his discomfiture from 
his daughters. Mr. Sheeney’s ultimatum reached him in the early 


53 


‘'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

afternoon, as he sat in his library in wretched expectation of it, and 
stared gloomily at the trees which were so soon to be felled in the 
fair reaches of the park. They had been his father’s pride and his 
grandfather’s and his great-grandfather’s. There was not a Wind- 
gall who would not turn in his case of lead in the family vault when 
those noble trees came to fall before the creditor’s ax. The day when 
the first ax sounded in those pleasant glades would be the bitterest 
he had ever known, and his life had been imbittered by poverty and 
its humiliations now for many and many a day. 

The little gray man, who resembled many of his class in not look- 
ing like a lord, received from the hands of an overwhelming servitor 
the expected letter, and trifled with it until the man had left the 
room. Then he opened it and read it, and, laying his head against 
the window casement, he groaned aloud, and was discovered in the 
fact by the Lady Ella, his daughter. 

She advanced anxiously, but there was something of a look of 
protection in her face and attitude, and she bent forward a little as 
she moved, as if eager to console. The earl turned toward her, and 
she slipped an arm about his neck. 

“ You are in trouble, dear,” she said. ” What is it? Can 1 help 
you?” 

“ No, my dear,” said the poor nobleman. “ I haven’t told you 
before, but you will have to know it. There’s no help for it, Begg 
says, and they’ll have to cut down the timber in the park. Poverty, 
my dear, poverty.” 

This was a blow, and a heavy one. 

” Poor trees,” said Ella. ” Poor papa.” 

” Your landscape loves come out,” said the earl, trying to smile. 
“ You cry out first for the trees.” 

” And last for you,” said his daughter, with a world of tender 
meaning in the tone. The earl stroked her head gently — she was a 
little taller than himself and looked much stronger and braver. She 
kissed him once or twice, and then they stood side by side looking 
at the park, which lay before them in all the fullness of its summer 
beauty. 

“ That isn’t the worst of it,” said Windgall, after a pause. He 
looked gloomily out of window, and avoided his daughter’s eye. 
” 1 am in the hands of the Jews.” 

Now that proclamation sounded very terrible, and the girl scarcely 
knew what to make of it. It brought an indistinct idea of merciless 
pursuit and helpless surrender, which alarmed her the more because 
its terrors were undefined. 

“ 1 owe that fellow Sheeney, at Gallowbay, two thousand pounds, ’.’ 
the earl continued. “He presses for it; says he must have it. I 
haven’t it, and I can’t get it, and there’s an end of the matter.” His 
daughter kissed him again, and murmured some unintelligible sylla- 
ble of pity and affection; but of what use was that? “ 1 shall have 
to put the house in the market,” he said bitterly, “ and the whole 
estate, and then 1 must pay off the mortgage; and we must go on to 
the Continent and drag out as well as we can in Brussels, or some 
other such refuge for the poor. There is no help for it.” She 
kissed him once more, and he moved away with a little show of 
fretfulness, and walked up and down the room. “ This wretched 


54 ‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

Hebrew fellow,” he broke out querulously, “says he w^Whave a. 
thousand pounds by this day week. He might as well ask me for a 
million.” 

“ The diamonds are worth more than a thousand pounds, dear,” 
she said gently. The gray little peer stopped short in his walk and 
looked at her with melancholy affection. 

“No, no, my darling,” he said, “I have robbed you of every- 
thing already. You gave me the little yearly income your poor 
mother left you as soon as you could touch it, and now ; 70 u want to 
give me her diamonds, poor thing!” There were tears in his eyes, 
and he felt ashamed of them, and walked away to hide them. 

“You must take them, papa,” she said, in tender decision. “ You 
need not part with them altogether. You may be able to recover 
them, if Mr. Samson’s hopes should turn out to be true.” 

“ They won’t,” said the earl, mournfully. “ They have struck 
upon a stone, or a shale, or a chalk, or something of that sort which 
always lies below coal and is never found above it. Samson knows 
perfectly well by this time that there isn’t coal enough under the 
whole estate to fill that fire-grate. Let us have no false hopes, my 
dear, but let us face the truth.” He took credit to himself for a 
sort of magnanimity in saying this, as if there had been a virtue in 
it, but his mental attitude was not very courageous, and the under 
consciousness of this fact disturbed him. He would have liked to 
take the diamonds too, and escape this trouble for the time, but it 
seemed base to do it. A great deal of his earlier love of honor and 
native pride had fallen away from him, but he was loth to see the 
last of them. 

“ Papa,” said the girl, approaching him again, and embracing 
him once more, “ 1 will tell you what we will do. You shall take 
the diamonds and pay Mr. Sheeney, and then we will close the 
house and go abroad, and live very, very cheaply until we can come 
back again with a little money saved. This great house is very ex- 
pensive, and we are really too poor to live in it. Whilst we are 
away it might be let — the Malmsboroughs let De Wincey Hall last 
year. And you might sell the house in Portman Square, papa, 
and — ” 

“The house in Portman Square,” said the earl, with a groan. 
“ The house in Portman Square is mortgaged to the chimney-cowls. 
You don’t understand business, Ella. Women don’t grasp these 
things. The house in Portman Square no more belongs to me than 
the Bank of England does.” 

The beautiful girl stroked his grizzled hair and looked at him 
with mournful affection. 

“ You must pay Mr. Sheeney, papa. You must take the dia- 
monds. I know how hard it is for you to take them, dear.” 

“ You do me no more than justice, there,” said her father. “ My 
dear, there is no one so wretched as a poor peer.” 

She was not unused to this sort of statement, but she felt for him 
with her whole heart. Perhaps of the two the girl’s burden was the 
heavier, for she bore her own griefs as well as his. This affair of 
the diamonds was nothing. It was infinitely easier for her to give 
them than for her father to take them, and she knew that. But the 
earl’s last speech amounted to a reluctant acceptance, and with a 


“THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 5d 

parting caress she left him. but only to return in a few minutes’ 
time with a dark shagreen case in her hands. Her father took the 
case and opened it, looked at the glittering stones within, sighed, 
closed the case and set il upon the table. 

“ I have the best childien in the world,” he said then, “ and I 
could almost wish that I were childless.” 

” Papa!” cried Ella, in a wounded voice. 

“ 1 could, indeed,” said Windgall. “ What can I do for you? I 
drag }■ ou into my troubles. 1 can do nothing but make you un- 
happy.” 

‘‘No, no,” she answered. “We have one another, and we need 
care for nothing else.” 

“ You are a good girl,” said the little nobleman — “ a good daugh- 
ter.” He paced indeterminately about the room for a minute or 
two, and made one or two halting motions toward the shagreen case 
on the table, but at length he summoned courage enough to pause 
and lay both hands on it. “1 take these,” he said, “ with bitter 
unwillingness, my dear. 1 take them because it would be worse for 
you and all of us if 1 refused them. 1 take them, in short, because 
1 can’t help taking them. God bless you, my dear. You are the 
best daughter man ever had, 1 think, and I am the unluckiest father 
that ever lived. ” He took the case in his hand and mechanically 
opened it and closed it. “I had best get the business over, Ella, 
since it has 1o be done. 1 will go up to town this afternoon.” 

“ Yes,” assented Ella; “ it will be better to have the immediate 
danger removed. And when you come back, papa, let us take 
counsel together, and see what can be done. I am willing to live 
anywhere, dear. It will be best to go abroad.” 

Windgall drove to the railway station and set out for London, 
with the jewels in a dispatch-box beside him, and through the whole 
of the journey one troublesome thought was with him. He despised 
himself very heartily and honestly for permitting this thought to 
•take such hold upon his mind, but it seemed of no use to struggle 
against its intrusion, and at last he submitted to it, and sat staring 
at it through his cigar smoke with a distempered countenance and a 
heart full of bile. Had it pleased heaven that Bolsover Kimberley 
should have been something less of a snob, his lordship could have 
borne this intruding fancy better. But the little cad was Huch a cad, 
so hopeless, helpless, and complete, that in the contemplation of his 
aw'ful perfections in that way the earl shuddered. And all the 
while the over-dressed figure of Bolsover Kimberley stood before 
tiie embarrassed man, and a voice seemed to issue from it, “ Catch 
me, flatter me, wheedle me, marry me to one of your daughters, and 
see the end of your woes,” 

A lady of the house of Windgall could marry anybody, and still 
be herself; but who could be happy tied to a fellow like that, if she 
had the barest notions of what a man should be? And yet was not 
anything better than that galling poverty in which the girls had 
lived all their lives? 

“ He is shy, confound him!” said the noble earl, contemplating 
this ignoble figure. “That’s his one good point. He wouldn’t 
want to show up much. He wouldn’t be always en evidence, like 
some men one sees, who are just as little fit to be seen as he is. And 


56 “THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 

1 don’t know even if 1 ask him down, that anything will come of 
it. In point of fact, I don’t think he’ll have audacity enough to 
think he would stand a chance.” 

Windgall began to hope that nothing would come of Kimberley’s 
stay at Shouldershott Castle if he should ask him to stay and the 
little man should say yes. This hope was very like that of the chil- 
dren who, having learnt the contrariety of fate, go about wishing 
for bad weather for a picnic. He caught himself thinking so, and 
derided his own weak shiftiness of mind. 

“ 1 shall find him out and ask him down,” he said aloud, with a 
look of new determination, ‘ ‘ and if he has the impudence to ask 
one of the girls to marry him, why — heaven help her! 1 sha’n’t 
force either of them. I’m not a professional heart-breaker. He- 
doesn’t seem a bad-natured little fellow, and he has good blood in 
him.” 

So his mind wandered to and fro. Fate had dealt hardly with 
him in making him a peer, and condemning him to poverty, and 
filling his house with daughters who, though the best girls in the 
world, could not help being expensive. Noblesse oblige is a very tine 
proverb, but amongst other things to which nobility compels is the 
maintenance of a good aspect in the world’s eye though it does not 
always supply the means. He would *have been well-to-do as a 
mere country gentleman, but his title and his great houses had made 
a pauper of him, as his father and grandfather had been before him. 
Whilst he thought of this Kimberley affair, he tried to solace him- 
self, as he had done before, by satirizing the world, and he told him- 
self that most men in his place would have no scruples such as he 
had, though every one would be merciless upon him if he threw his 
own scruples away. 

He arrived in town too late for business that night, and spent an 
hour or two at the Carlton, where everybody was interested in poli- 
tics, which, of all themes in the world, was perhaps the least inter- 
esting to this hereditary legislator. The great efliecls of party battle 
touched him, and he was a good Tory; but the continual affairs of 
outposts which keep the professional politician’s blood warm and 
his heart in fighting trim were a weariness to his soul, and he left 
the place, feeling iriste and bored, though almost anything had 
seemed a relief from the exigent thought of Mr. Bolsover Kimber- 
ley. It was pretty certain, of course, that that young gentleman 
would not refuse the earl’s invitation; but it was by no means cer- 
tain that he would of his own initiative fall in love with the earl ’s 
daughter, and by no means certain, even if he did so, that he would 
speak out his mind. 

“ It is a dirty business,” said Windgall, as he tossed to and fro on 
his bed, ” and by no means a sure one. And when I have shown 
the whole world my hand, I may be disappointed, and have nothing 
but a little of the dirt through which I shall have crawled still 
sticking to me to remind me of my trouble.” 

That other affair of the diamonds was not one to be proud of, and 
his lordship tossing to and fro all night was perhaps as little to be 
envied as any man in her Majesty’s dominion. He could not help 
himself. His poverty was no fault of his; he knew not, in fact, on 
whom to charge it; but he knew what a weight it was, and how in- 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

separable it seemed from degradation of one sort or anothej 
once or twice in the course of the long, long night he felt 
inclined for suicide. 

It was midway through the afternoon before he found courage h 
run with his daughter’s jewels to the pawnbroker’s. The pawn- 
broker was a jeweler also, and found the combination of trades con- 
venient to his clients, and therefore convenient to himself. It was 
no wonder, when, having nerved himself to this disagreeable task, 
the earl ran against the man who had so long filled his thoughts, 
that he was a good deal embarrassed. He had meant, as a matter 
of course, that his meeting with the little millionaire should have as 
casual and unimportant a look as he could give it, and this unex- 
pected encounter was valuable in its way: but he was so little fitted 
for it, and so taken aback, that he had made it seem a thing of 
urgent importance, and for a moment or two was at his wit’s end to 
nerve himself. But on his way to Kimberley’s hotel he pulled him- 
self together, and an inspiration came to him. 

“ What 1 wanted to say,” he began, when he and Kimberley were 
settled down, and he had accepted one of Kimberley’s cigars, “ was 
simply this : my lawyer tells me that a public reception is a-foot in 
Gallowbay, and that you, Mr. Kimberley, are the object of it.” 

He smiled there with his smile of election times— not altogether a 
natural contortion, but scarcely so forced and wretched as that with 
which Kimberley replied to him. 

“ Begg says there is great fear of your refusing. Kow, will you 
tell rr e if that fear is at all grounded?” 

Kimberley drew out from his breast-pocket Mr. Amelia’s elabo- 
rate epistle. 

‘ ‘ 1 meant to have dropped this into the post this afternoon, ’ ’ he 
said; ” but I’m glad 1 forgot it now, my lord, because it’s my an- 
swer.” He knew how clumsily he expressed himself, and blushed 
hotly, as he tore open the envelope and handed the inclosure to his 
lordship. ” That says better — ” he began, and trailed off into 
silence. 

Windgall took the letter and read it, by this time quite self-pos- 
sessed again. 

” Admirably expressed,” he said, returning it to Kimberley, with 
a slight bow; “ and most honorable to your heart, I am sure, Mr. 
Kimberley; most honorable. But — may I presume to advise?” 
Kimberley said nothing, but he looked as if nothing the earl could 
do would seem like a presumption to him. ” If I may,” pursued 
Windgall, “ don’t send this letter. I respect your desire for retire- 
ment, "Mr. Kimberley. I have the fullest and completest sympathy 
with that desire, and yet 1 say, ‘ Don’t send this letter.’ The people 
of Gallowba}^ look forward to your occasional presence amongst 
them with natural anxiety, and the receipt of this letter will cause 
them considerable disappointment. People in our position have 
duties thrust upon us which are not always pleasant, but are none 
the less to be avoided on that account.” At this flattery Kimberley 
blushed and trembled. ‘‘ I had business in town this week,” pur- 
sued Windgall, airily; “ and when I learned from Begg that there 
really was a considerable fear of your refusal I made up my mind to 
intrude my counsel upon you. 1 will ask you to forgive the intru- 


"‘THE WAY OF THE WOELD.” 

I am an older man, and perhaps more experienced in the 
of the world. Let that consideration help you to excuse me.’^ 
1 should like to do my duty,” said Kimberley, humbly; “ but 
couldn’t endure a public reception, my lord, 1 couldn’t, rea’ly. ”■ 
“ You will not find the ordeal so trying as you fear,” returned his 
lordship. “You’ll excuse my candor, Mr. Kimberley, 1 know. 
Gallowbay is not a wealthy place; I take a great deal of interest in 
the town myself — was born there — have lived there for the greater 
part of my life; and the people hope for your occasional presence. 
The late owner of the estate was a minor — not a penny was spent in 
the place for twenty years. People feel it keenly, I assure you. ’ ’ 
“I’m going to give a norgan to the noo town hall, myloid,” 
cried Kimberley, “ and tcf build a wing to the grammar school. 1 
shall be glad, my lord, to do anything in that way, but I couldn’t 
endure a public reception, my lord. 1 couldn’t, my lord, I rea’ly 
couldn’t,” 

Inwardly my lord fairly writhed at the speech and manners of the 
millionaire, but he put a good face upon the matter, and spoke with 
an air of unpretentious bonhomie. 

“Well, Mr. Kimberley, don’t have a public reception until you 
feel more equal to it. I’ll tell you what you might do,” he said, as 
if the fancy had presented itself to him for the first time that mo- 
ment. “ Come and stay at Shouldershott Castle for a week or two, 
and familiarize yourself with the new feel of things. You can meet 
the county people there gradually, and get used to them. You’ll have 
to meet them some day, you know, and you may as well get it over. 
What do you say?” 

Kimberley, as might have been supposed, was prodigiously flattered 
and fluttered by this proposal. The earl pressed him a little— it was 
not worth while to finesse with a fish of so blunt a mouth — and in a 
while Bolsover, scarcely knowing what he did, consented. When 
he thought of being beneath the same roof with Lady Ella, his spir- 
itual vertigo became almost maddening, and he flushed and trem- 
bled as he had never done before. He — little snob of a lawyer’s 
clerk iis he had been— had dared to love her when there was never 
any distant hope in the world that he would even speak to her, and 
now he was going to be near her, to shake hands with her, to sit at 
the same table, to sleep beneath the same roof. The light scorched 
the vitals of the moth already. 

He laid out his finest trousers, and waistcoats, and neckties with 
his own hands that night, and spent an hour or two before his mir- 
ror advancing and retiring, shaking hands with imaginary gen tie- 
people, taking off his hat, and practicing a graceful emplojmient of 
his pocket-handkerchief. When he got to bed he read a book of 
etiquette, from which he learned, amongst other valuable things, that 
“ it is permitted to a gentleman to wear a black frock coat in the 
bosom of his family, ’ ’ and that a lady may, if she chooses, descend 
to the dinner table in yellow gloves. 

He pictured the [Lady Ella in yellow gloves, and he saw himself 
beside her in evening dress, with diamonds glittering in his shirt 
front — his — Bolsover Kimberley’s. 

‘ ‘ I shall see her, ’ ’ he muttered wildly to himself ; “ I shall meet her 
in the ’alls, the ’alls of dazzling light. ’ ’ He was choke full of emotion 


59 


'•THE WAY OF THE WOULD. 

and of such poetry as he could hold. He was heroic, he was ten- 
der, he had his hopes and his despairs, he worshiped his love and be- 
wailed his own imperfections, as loftier people do in the like con- 
ditions. There were moments in his reveries then and afterward when 
she stooped to him from her imperial place, and whispered that she 
loved him. There were hours when she scorned him, but despair 
was scarcely bitterer than the maddening draught of hope. Even if 
there had been no Lady Ella in the case, it would have been bad 
enough for a shy man of such humble breeding to find himself 
bound on a visit to an earl. As it was, it is something of a wonder 
that Kimberley did not lose his mental balance altogether. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Mr. Amelia’s observations on the damaged memorials of West- 
minster Abbey were a good deal cut about by the editor of the “ Pic- 
cadilly Gazette, but they were inserted and they were paid for. He 
felt, not without reason, that he had made a curiously fortunate 
beginning, and being a young person of much natural aptitude he 
began to find and to wmrk new mines of industry. He had not yet 
discovered who Autolycus was, but that light-handed gentleman’s 
motto was constantly with him_, “ Every lane’s end finds a careful 
man work. ” Rambling in one of the parks one day he overheard an' 
aristocratic-looking old fellow haranguing a younger man on the dis- 
graceful duck- weeded dirtiness of one of the smaller sheets of orna- 
mental water. He dashed into the conversation with no embarrass- 
ment. 

“ Excuse me, sir, but can you tell me who is responsible for the 
condition of things you complain of?” 

The ancient swell put up a gold double eyeglass and surveyed him 
with an air of placid curiosity, dropped his glass, and turning to his 
companion resumed his speech. 

” That,” said Mr. Amelia to himself, “ is abominably insolent,” 
■and he walked away erect and indignant. Inquiries addressed to a 
good-humored official of the park secured an answer, and Mr. Amelia 
booked another half-guinea, the ” Piccadilly Gazette ” demanding to 
know next day why it was that one of the lungs of London should 
be poisoned by the exhalations of this filthy pond, and calling pretty 
smartly on the First Commissioner of Works to attend to the busi- 
ness with which he was intrusted by the countiy. “It is not,” 
added the editor, “ that the Commissioner of Works is one whit be- 
hind his colleagues. In small things as in gieat the party now in 
power has agreed to proclaim its incompetence. ’ ’ This rebuke being 
founded on Mr. Amelia’s observations inflated him in no small de- 
gree, and he began to feel that he was a personage of consequence. 

Finding this pessimist game upon which he had entered a profit- 
able one, he pursued it, and became a Censor of the Parks and 
Streets. Diligently studying the journalistic manner, he arrived at 
a closer and closer approximation of the “ Piccadilly,” and day by 
day saw better what was wanted. In the course of a week or two he 
was bold enough to present himself at the oifice of the journal, 
where his smart, crisp manner pleased the sub-editor on duty, and 


60 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


(C 




in a day or two he found liimself intrusted with a commission for 
an abbreviated report of the proceedings of the Society for the Sup- 
pression of the Opium Traffic, then gathered at Exeter Hall. So, 
little by little, he pushed, and shouldered, and edged until he be- 
came a recognized figure at the office, and, though unsalaried, made 
such an income as he had never realized before. He scraped ac- 
quaintance among his fellow penmen and examined them all with 
critical eye, seeing nothing in any of them to make him afraid of his 
own ambitions. The brighter sort were too convivially inclined, the 
respectable sort too dull to alarm him. 

Now and again he contrived to commit amazing blunders, as when 
he asked in perfect innocence and good faith in what line of life 
Mr. Thomas Carlyle had distinguished himself, and in the after days 
of his success the curious remembered these things against him and 
quoted them one to another. But when we remember how full of 
pitfalls of this kind the life of an ignorant instructor of the public 
is sure to be, we shall wonder, not that Mr. Amelia tripped so often, 
but that he fell so seldom. Deft, adaptive, courageous, quick to 
seize and absorb, the little man took his place in the rough-and- 
tumble scramble of lower journalism in London, and made his way 
with wonderful rapidity. Some men are held back in the race of 
life by shyness; he had none. Some are weighted by humility; he 
had but a theoretical acquaintance with the qualit}’-. To some the 
fact that a place is filled already is a bar against application for it; 
Mr. Amelia never waited for a place to become vacant before he 
would ask for it, if he thought it in the least worth his having. He 
was unpopular, but people said he would rise. He despised the un- 
popularity, and determined to fulfill the prophecy. 

It was about this time that he entered upon that line of life which 
led him to his present pitch of greatness — the satiric observation of 
men and manners. His note-book began to be rich in unpleasant 
phrases descriptive of people whom he saw casually in the perform- 
ance of his duties. “A man with a bad hat and a tired sneer. ” 
That was Formby, the famous writer of vei's de soci^de. “ A man 
with dejected eyebrows and apologetic hair.” That was the noble 
lord the home secretary of the period. He forged and polished 
these little arrows at home with infinite labor, and when the man was 
mentioned he shot one of them with an admirable air of impromptu. 
Sometimes an arrow lay in the note-book quiver ready polished for 
months together, before he would fit it to the string and let it fly. 
His earlier efforts were somewhat clumsy, but practice brought per- 
fection, and in a while there was no man in London who could fit 
you with a phrase more completely than Mr. Amelia, if you would 
only give him time. Not your spiritual or moral qualities; but the 
cut of your coal, the set of your hat, the fashion of your boots, the 
color and style of your waistcoat or necktie; any little characteristic 
gesture, any outside habit, or trick of feature; he could hit any of 
these things with unening precision. His ” Notes from Behind the 
Speaker’s Chair,” his “Thumbnail Sketches from the Peers’ Gal- 
lery,” his “ Letters from the Member for Land’s End,” delight us 
at this hour by that very trick of surface observation, though, per- 
haps, after a dozen years of hats, waistcoats, and neckties, we are 
getting a little weary, and would fain go deeper. 


61 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’^ 

But let us 2 JO back to our muttons. 

Mr. Amelia, in liis earlier days in London, frequented a certain 
bar not far from the journalistic center, where at that time many 
men of letters habitually took luncheon, or sat above their claret or 
whisky and water to chat among themselves. Here he familiar- 
ized himself with many of the details of good table service, and ob- 
served the manner in which fish is served and green peas are eaten. 
Here also he learned that champagne is drunk cold and that con- 
noisseurs prefer to have the chill taken ofl! their claret before they 
consume it. His own modest refection rarely exceeded a sandwich 
and a cup of coffee, and the waiter, who found the rest of the guests 
far more liberal than men of fortune would have been, hated Mr. 
Amelia, who would detain the comic papers for an hour whilst he 
nibbled his sandwich and sipped his cold coffee, and would pocket 
all his change at the end of this moderate banquet. 

Hither came many of the best known men in London. Clancarty, 
the genial, the lovable, the too soft-hearted man, would shed a tear 
there of a night into his whisky whilst he talked of his father, 
famous in letters, whose name all Englishmen honor, and whom his 
children adored with a passionate devotion. MacGuffog, prince of all 
who have written of war — loud, animated, cheery, a dauntless man 
of most generous nature : the great Dexter, purblind with books, a 
mine of strange learning, bland and suave, but ready to be caustic : 
Harford, big and bearded, with Crimean shirt and ungloved hands, 
breathing threats and slaughter against all Whig Fellows and Radi- 
cal Fellows, bombarding opposers with great rolling epithets : the 
most amiable and friendly of men, and the best of writers for boys: 
these and many more Mr. Amelia beheld as he munched and sipped 
behind the marble-topped table. He was not in the least oppressed 
by their greatness, but put himself mental shoulder to shoulder with 
each of them, and felt as big as any. There is something at once 
comic and sorrowful in the image of the little man in his corner, 
looking out of his keen shallow eyes at this new world, and revolv- 
ing in that ill-furnished, compact big head of his the constant com- 
parison between himself and others. The comparison was always to 
his own advantage. 

One day Jack O’Hanlon, with his Irish eyes twinkling behind his 
spectacles, sat down, with his glass of whisky, beside Mr. Amelia, 
and fell into talk with him. A royal duke and a chimney-sweep 
were one to Jack. ,He talked to anybody if he had the inclination, 
and seldom waited to be inthrojuiced. Mr. Amelia had some knowl- 
edge of him already. 

“ Ye’re a young man from the country, Fni thinking,” «aid Mr. 
O’Hanlon, twinkling at the little man beside him. 

“And you a middle-aged gentleman from Ireland,” responded 
Mr. Amelia, crisp and cool. Jack sparkled and twinkled for a sec- 
ond or two, and then laughed outright. 

“ Faith, I am, me nettle. Though how ye found it out’s a won- 
dher. I’m generally taken for a Neapolitan. Didn’t 1 see ye at 
Exeter Hall yesterday, helping to convert the haythen?” 

“We sat at opposite ends of the reporters’ table,” said Mr. Amelia. 

“ I thought 1 knew ye again,” said Jack. “ Have a drink. 
There’s a dryness in the atmosphere of London which makes it the 


62 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


>> 


most delightful place in the world to live in. Ye’re always thirsty 
here, thank God. A constant thirst’s a great blessing.” 

“I’ll take a cup of coffee,” said Mr. Amelia, sliding his cup 
toward the waiter. 

“ Don’t waste a good drouth on a material like that,” Mr. O’Han- 
lon expostulated. “ It’s casting swine before pearls.” Mr. Amelia 
resisting all pressure toward alcoholic beverages, Jack sighed and 
resigned the point. “ What are ye for?” 

Mr. Amelia rightly construing this as asking what journal he re- 
presented, answered that he was not formally attached to any jour- 
nal, but was occasionally asked to represent the “ Piccadilly Ga- 
zette.” 

“Unattached!” said Jack. “Then there’s hard times in front, 
begorra! The Session’s coming to an end in a month’s time, and 
there’ll be thirty or forty men loose and out of collar, and every 
man Jack o’ them eager for work. Poor devils! A man with a 
sessional engagement and nothing else, is a melancholy object. He 
draws his six guineas a week for half the year, and nothing at all 
for the rest of the time. ’ ’ 

“ A man should be able to live on that,” returned Mr. Amelia. 
To tell the truth, his heart leaped within him at the thought. “ One 
hundred and fifty pounds per annum, and half the year a holiday! 
I confess 1 see nothing to mourn for.” 

“ It’s a simple sum in arithmetic, isn’t it?” said Jack. “ But the 
multiplication table’s the biggest liar unhung. Six guineas a week 
for six months is not three guineas a week for twelve. Ye think it 
is, but that’s because ye’re young and innocent, and put your trust 
in the multiplication table. Ye’d think seven pounds a week was a 
pound a day, wouldn’t ye? I used to, till I had to depend on it, but 
I’ve found out the blagyard swindle now, and 1 know betther.” 

“ If seven pounds a week is not a pound a day, what is it?” de- 
manded Mr. Amelia. 

“It’s seven pounds,” said Mr. O’Hanlon, “ onlil ye break it. 
“ Then,” with a grave sweep of the hand, “ it’s vapor.” 

“1 am inclined to believe,” said Mr. Amelia, crisply, “ that the 
multiplication table is right, after all. 1 think 1 could undertake to 
demonstrate its accuracy if I had that seven pounds a week to ex- 
periment on.” 

“ Rosy illusions of me youth,” said Mr. O’Hanlon, raising his 
glass and looking with one eye at the pale amber fluid within it, 
“ farewell.” He tinislied the whisky at a drauglit, and catching the 
waiter’s eye at that instant he beckoned him with a backward nod. 

“ DoJt again, Alick,” he said, with suavity; “ hot, but no lemon. 
May be,” he said, turning to Mr. Amelia, “you’re a total ab- 
stainer. That makes a difference. ” 

“ If I drink at all,” said the little man, “ I drink in strict modera- 
tion, ” 

“Do ye now?” asked Mr. O’Hanlon. “I’m told there’s people 
like that. I’m a beveragist meself.” 

This to Mr. Amelia’s mind was not a statement which called just 
then for outspoken comment. His companion of the moment had 
drolleiy of a sort, no doubt, but it was not of the kind that Mr. 
Amelia was readiest to appreciate. A jest that stung was the sort of 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’! 63 

jest he liked most, when he saw it leveled at another; he loved a 
cut that laid the bone bare or a thrust that set the victim quivering 
— something nice and nasty and vindictive. Poor Jack O ’Hanlon’s 
sunny, careless, Irish heart, with all its beams tinged by passing 
through a medium of whisky and water, seemed a worthless sort of 
organ to our young censor. Since he had first set eyes on Mr. 
O’ Hanlon, in the little Fleet Street hostelry, where the good matured 
Irishman’s scheme for Barney had served as the foundation-stone of 
Mr. Amelia’s London fortunes, he had seen him half-a-dozen times 
or so, generally twinkling and sparkling behind his glasses in the 
middle of a knot of good fellows, whom his quaint sayings' kept in 
continual mirth, and Mr. Amelia had even heard Jack described as 
the humorist par excellence of the reporting world. 

“ 1 suppose,” he said to himself, ” the man talks this sort of flip- 
pant, whiskyfied nonsense everywhere.” He sat silent for a minute 
or two, laboring to characterize his new acquaintance. By and by 
out came his note-book and down went the formula — ” A man who 
pelts you with whisky-sodden pellets of stale Irish humor,” This 
was written in Mr. Pitman’s system of shorthand, under O ’Hanlon’s 
nose, but Mr. Amelia was careful not to let his companion see it. 
He surveyed the signs with a one-sided appreciative droop of that 
big compact head, and nodded, as if to say that the phrase would do 
when filed down a little. One of these days, he thought, he might 
write a novel, and scarify the press crew of London. So poor and 
pitiful a set as the rank and file of the London press he thought he 
had nowhere seen ; but this was not an honest opinion with him„ 
because in obedience to his comparative instinct he had nieasured 
them all by himself — a standard by which they were sure to fail. 

“ Would ye like t’earn a guinea?” said Mr. O’Hanlon, suddenly. 

” Don’t think I’m insultin’ ye, now, and mockin’ ye with th’ un- 
attainable, Are ye free this evening?” 

“ 1 am disengaged this evening,” responded Mr. Amelia, return, 
ing his note-book to his pocket, “and 1 should like to earn a 
guinea if I saw a way to it.” 

” There’s a nephew o’ mine,” said Jack, ” from Ballykillfadden 
— me own place — that’s taught himself shorthand and imported him- 
self to London. Barney Maguire’s his name; maybe ye’ve met him? 
No? The better luck’s yours, 1 got ’im a berth on the Gahl’ry o’ 
the House of Commons — where he is about as fit to be as me aunt’s 
cow is to be field- marshal —and he’s on the burst this two days with 
his first -week’s salary. 1 did his workmeself last night, but to-night. 
I’m busy, and since you’re new and out o’ collar I don’t know why 
ye shouldn’t have the guinea as well as anybody else. The work’ll 
be light to-night, with as likely as not a count-out after dinner- but 
ye’ll get the guinea all the same.” 

“ When shall I be wanted?” asked Mr. Amelia. 

“We’ve time for a quiet walk down there,” said O’Hanlon. 
“ Wait while I getu cigyar, an’ then we’ll stretch our legs.” 

As Mr. Amelia walked westward along Fleet Street and the 
Strand, and past Trafalgar Square and Whitehall, his mind was 
busy with all kinds of ambitious fancies. He was actually going 
into the Gallery of the House of Commons, and though it was but 
as locum teneiu for a single evening, he would have set foot as a 


64 


‘^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


worker within those precincts, and would liave realized the aspira- 
tions of the last three years. Might he not find a permanent place? 
and who knew what would happen if he did so? His companion’s 
Irish drolleries fell on ears that scarcely heard them, but Mr, O’ Han- 
lon was in a talkative humor, and did not care to be interrupted, so 
they went along amicably, the one having all the talk to himself, 
and the other "following his own fancies. In a while they came to 
Palace Yard, and Mr. Amelia, with head erect, chin tucked in, and 
his little figure pulled out to its height, trod for the first time the 
stairs with which his feet in after years became so familiar. A 
police officer on duty in a corner of the yard recognized O’Hanlon 
with a nod, anc^drew aside from a doorway to allow him to pass, 
and tiie Irishman opened a door and beckoned Mr. Amelia to enter. 

“They say,’’ he said, “that this used to be the Star Chamber. 
I’m no antiquarian meself, but I believe they’re right.” 

The new-comer beheld a small but lofty room with cushioned 
benches at the wall, an open fire-grate, a table strewn with long 
pipes, with a dozen pewter pint pots and glasses amongst them; and 
seated on the benches, or in arm-chairs at the table and on either 
side the fire-grate, a dozen gentlemen of varying ages in a cloudy 
haze of tobacco smoke. 

“ Begorra,” said O’Hanlon, in a half whisper, “ I’d forgotten to 
make meself acquainted with your name. What d’ye call yourself?’ 

“ My name is Amelia,” said the little man. 

“ Oh the little dorlin’ !” cried Jack. 

“ William Amelia,” said the little man, with mighty stateliness. 
He is a poor humorist, indeed, who can find no better fun than to 
make jokes on a man’s name. Jack laughed in answer to the re- 
proof Mr. Amelia’s manner conveyed, and saluted a friend or two 
about the room. 

“Mickey,” he said, seating himself beside a gentleman who 
looked almost as important as Mr. Amelia himself, “Barney’s on 
the burst still, I’m sorry to tell ye, and I won’t be able to be here 
to-night. But here’s me young friend Mr. Amelia will be glad to 
teek his pleece for an evening. ’ ’ 

“Very good,” said the important man, nodding curtly at Mr. 
Amelia, and then, as if by an after-thought, shaking hands with 
him; “but I’ll tell ye what it is. Jack, me boy, it’s not me own 
fault at all, for so long as the work’s done, I don’t care who does it, 
but Barney can save himself the trouble of cornin’ back again this 
session. The last night he was here he was that mixed he turned 
over three pages of hfs note-book at a time, and plunged right out 
of a speech of Disraeli’s into one of Isaac Butt’s, and meed Disraeli 
talk three-quarters of a column of sinse and rayson and peetriotism 
about Ireland. Crowther sent down to the printer for the copy, and 
I have a note from him saying that he can’t afford to encouraage 
that sort of eccentricity. He says the ‘ Herald’s ’ not a comic 
paper, though I’m not so sure o’ that as Crowtlier seems to be.” 

“ Well,” said Mr. O’Hanlon, with a sigh, “glory be to God, 
murphys an’ buttermilk’s plenty at Ballykillfadden. Barney’ll dew 
very well there till the beginning of next session.” 

“ So he will,” asserted the other; “ an’ maybe ’twill learn him a 
lesson.” 


"'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 65 

Things promised better and better for Mr. Amelia. The chapter 
-of accidents seemed to hold leaf after leaf that read in his favor. It 
was just and fitting that sober integrity and competence should pros- 
per by the fault of drunken incapacity, and nobody could reasona- 
bly ask that the little man should pity the defaulting Barney. He 
seemed to be climbing to fortune on Barney’s back, and though he 
had never seen him, he had quite a distinct image of that good-for- 
nothing gentleman in his mind. 

“ liet me see,” said the chief of the “ Herald’s” staff, making a 
small mental calculation; “in alphabetical order, Maguire follows 
Lawrence, and Poultney follows Maguire. Ye relieve Lawrence at 
six o’clock, Mr. Amaylia, and at half -past ye’ll be relieved be Poult- 
ney.” 

“ I’ll show ye upstairs,” said the kindly O’Hanlon, “and inthro- 
iuice ye to the noble Steele, the janitor.” Mr. Amelia follo-wed the 
Irishman up a winding flight of stone steps, and, passing through 
a room in which a dozen men sat writing, stood before a pair of 
folding glass doors, through which he took a peep at Her Gracious 
Majesty’s Commons, most of whom within view appeared to be 
peacefully dozing, each with his hat pulled forward over his nose. 
Immediately before him, shutting out the greater part of the House 
from view, were a number of men penned in little square sunken 
holes, all of whom seemed to be taking life as lane-uidly as the gen- 
tlemen below. 

“ Don’t block up the way, if you please, gentlemen,” said a grave 
voice at Mr. Amelia’s elbow, and the little man looking up, beheld 
a big man in evening dress, with a silver chain and badfire upon his 
waistcoat. For a moment the little man was abased in spirit before 
the big one, discerning in him a functionary of this ancient and 
honorable House; but O’Hanlon was evidently on familiar terms 
with him, and Mr. Amelia’s awe was dissipated. 

“ Mr. Amelia, Steele,” said O’Hanlon, “ he’s for the ‘ Her’ld ’ this 
■evening. Ye’ll mind an’ do what Steele tells ye,” he added to Mr. 
Amelia; “ onless ye want to find out where the Torture Chamber 
is.” Mr. Steele smiled and produced a silver snufC-box, from which 
O’ Hanlon took a pinch. The owner of the box took a pinch also, 
and the two bowed gravely at each other as they sniffed at the pow- 
der. 

“ Might I go inside?” asked Mr. Amelia. “ I should like to hear 
what’s going on.” 

“ Ye may, then,” said O’Hanlon, “ but it’s a fancyye’ll be cured 
of miffhty soon. D’ye see where the gray-headed man’s sitting? 
him with" the bald spot? Very well. When the clock across there 
says ‘ six o’clock,’ ye walk into that box, and when it says ‘ half- 
past, ’ ye walk out again. For me own part, I’m dry, thank God, 
and I’m going to the refreshment-room for a drink.” 

IMr. Amelia nodded a farewell, and edged himself through the 
folding doors. For the first time in his life he was in the House of 
Commons, actually there for the purpose of reporting a debate; and 
he thought of Charles Dickens and Lord Campbell, who had entered 
on that function before him. He found a vacant corner seat, and 
peering over the edge of the gallery, looked down on a gentleman 
with an extremely large, flat bald head, who was barking and cough- 


66 


‘^THE WAY OV THE WORLD.” 

ing out a speech at an almost unintelligible rate of speed. Twenty 
or thirty men, thinly scattered about the benches, slept around him. 
Nobody listened except a distracted reporter in a corner, who had 
been especially retained by the honorable gentleman below to secure 
his luminosities for the “ Mudpool Echo,” so that at least his con- 
stituents might be enlightened. Now and then a weary-looldng 
personage, with a face of accustomed boredom, pushed aside the 
folding doors at the entrance to the chamber, and after a hasty glance 
at the slumbering figures and the gabbling old gentleman on his legs, 
went away again. 

“And this,” thought Mr. William Amelia, “ is the British House 
of Commons!” It was duller than a meeting of guardians or com- 
missioners at Gallowbay. It could not hold a candle to the Town 
Council of his native city. 

When the bald-headed gentleman had barked, coughed, and 
cackled in Mr. Amelia’s hearing for one half hour or thereabouts, 
one of the recumbent gentlemen awoke, yawned, looked at the clock, 
took off his hat, and arose. “ 1 beg to move, sir,” he said, “ that 
the House be counted.” Everybody awoke, and there was a little 
bustle for awhile. Then twenty or thirty members strolled in and 
took their places, and when the old gentleman had been set a-going 
once more they all went out again. At six o’clock Mr. Amelia re- 
lieved his colleague according to instructions. 

“Don’t take a word of this fellow,” said the colleague as he 
climbed out of the sunken box. Mr. Amelia nodded and took his 
place. The old gentleman talked through the whole of his half- 
hour of duty, and at the end of it Mr. Amelia was visited b}- the 
chief of staff, who told him to write, “ Amelia follows Lawrence — 
Poultney follows,” on a strip of paper and drop it into a specified 
basket in Committee Room Number Eighteen. Having fulfilled 
this arduous duty Mr. Amelia found himself free until nine 
o’clock, and spent the time in wandering about Palace Yard and 
Parliament Street. When he re-entered the gallery and prepared to 
take his place, there were but half a dozen members on the benches 
below, and this time a long, gaunt man of preternaturally solemn as- 
pect M’'as haranguing the great waste chamber, and nobody was 
taking the faintest notice of him except, as in the former case, a sol- 
itary reporter, who craned painfully over the edge of the gallery to 
catch his merest murmur. By- and- by somebody awoke, yawned, 
and stretched luxuriously, looked at the clock, rose to his feet, and 
moved that the House be counted. There was a longish pause, and 
then a cocked hat was seen by Mr. Amelia to wave below a sort of 
carved wooden canopy, as the Speaker counted the members pres- 
ent, and then a solemn voice announced that the House was ad- 
journed. Mr. Amelia received his guinea, and went home rejoicing, 
with instructions^ to present himself anew on the morrow. He ex- 
ulted and his little breast was inflated as he walked proudly home. 
What a leap in life he had made, to be sure! Two or three months 
ago fourth reporter on the staff of a mere provincial journal, work- 
‘ ing hard for thirty shillings a week, and now picking up a guinea a 
night for doing nothing. 

But Linden saw another sight four-and-twenty hours later, when 
every bench was packed, when the Peers’ Gallery and the Strangers’ 


% ^ ‘‘THE WAY OF THE WOULD.’’ 67 

Oallery were thronged, when the place echoed with laughter and 
cheers and counter-cheers, and the swiftly-stammering Grecian, 
standing with his hands behind him like a boy recitihg a lesson, 
launched bitter invective, and sarcasm tipped and barbed and pol- 
ished by scholarship, at his old impassive enemy, and the panting 
Amelia, like Time in pursuit of Shakespeare, toiled after him in 
vain. The speech was a mosaic of quotations from Homer and the 
author of the last new comedy ; Father Prout and the prophet Mal- 
achi, Shakespeare, Vanbrugh, Sheridan, Horace, and Juvenal. The- 
stammering tongue plundered each of these and many more, steal- 
ing here an epithet and there a phrase, and here an apt little parable. 
Allusions familiar or recondite sparkled in every sentence. Every 
now and then, amid the tumult of the House, Mr. Amelia heard a 
cackling laugh from a white-headed old gentleman on his right, and 
this laugh always spoke of intense approval of the Greek and Latin. 
This old gentleman was a profound classic, and had a rare literary 
humor. The little Amelia sweated and writhed whilst the merry 
old gentleman sniggered beside him, and his heart sank as he toiled, 
until at last, in the extremity of his despair, he groaned aloud. The 
clock struck, his relief, note-book in hand, tapped him on the shoul- 
der, and he left the box with a headache and a heartache. He was 
a failure and an impostor, and he knew it. 

“ That’s something like parliamentary eloquence, if you like,” 
said the white-headed old gentleman in a mellow mumble. 

You’re new to the work, and 1 dare say you found that a difficult 
speech to take. V ou can look over my copy in Number Eighteen, 
if that will be of any use to you.” 

'• Thank you,” said Mr. Amelia, self-possessed again. “ I a 
Jittle uncertain about the foreign languages.” 

“ M — m!” said the old fellow, with an odd sidelong look at him, 

1 fancy. you are! We call Greek and Latin dead languages, sir, 
not foreign. When 1 was your age, sir, the gallery was a place for 
scholars. Now, any ignoramus can get into it. The foreign lan- 
guages!” 

He shuffled on with an indignant air, and Mr. Amelia followed 
meekly. The old gentleman did not repeat his invitation, but the 
little man sat down beside him and squinted askance at his crabbed 
manuscript. He was the faster penman of the two, but he regulated 
his pace, so as to leave the leader always one ^olio in advance. 
When the task was done he breathed freel}^ 

“ Shall I be required fo-i^orrow?” he asked his chief at mid- 
night, when he pocketed his second guinea. 

Yes,” said the chief, “ you’d better come regularly now, till the 
end of the session and away went Mr. Amelia, fatigued but happy. 

But next evening the chief wore a face of wrath, and encountering 
Mr. Amelia in the refreshment-room, he drew him into the corridor, 
and there laid upon a window-sill two slips of newspaper. 

“ This,” said he, laying a finger on one, is Mr. Blenkinsopp’s 
report in the ‘Gazette.’ This,” with a finger on the other, “is 
yours in the ‘ Herald. ’ They’re word for word the same. When a 
gentleman lends his purse to you next time, an’ tells ye to take a 
sixpence, maybe ye’ll know better than to help yourserf to a fiver. 


68 ‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ ' 

There’s a guinea for this evening’s work, Mr. Amelia, and we’ll try 
to do without ye in the future. Good evening. ” 

In his after day of success Mr. Amelia remembered and resented 
this contemptuous dismissal, but no w there was nothing to but to 
retire. 

“ I’d have let it pass, Mickey,” said the white-headed old gentle- 
man to Mr. Amelia’s late chief, “ if it hadn’t been for the foreign 
languages. ‘ 1 a little uncertain about the foreign languages,’ 
says he, with the most confounded innocent degage air you ever saw 
in your life, as if he’d been a ripe scholar in his day and had grown 
a little rusty. “ I’m glad to see a young man like that get a lesson. ” 
We all recognized Mickey’s portrait in Mr. Amelia’s recent brill- 
iant novel, but not all of us knew what excellent reason the little 
man had for hating him. 


CHAPTER IX. 

The great Intelligencer of Fashion made it known to the world at 
large that Mr. Bolsover Kimberley was on a visit to the Earl of 
Windgall at Shouldershott Castle, and the world at large put its owm 
construction on the news. People knew that Windgall was poor, 
and that the late owner of the Gallowbay estate had been engaged 
in his minority to one of his lordship’s daughters. They knew that 
the early death of that promising youngster had been a terrible blow 
to the noble earl his neighbor, and the world was agreed that it was 
impossible to mistake the meaning of Windgall ’s latest move. With 
the curious exception of the people most interested in the projected 
arrangement, its whole history and meaning were known to every- 
body. Kimberley never guessed it, and the ladies of Windgall’s 
household most assuredly did not so much as dream of it. Kimber- 
ley’s native humility, and the constant sense he had of his own poor 
deserts, kept his mind from any hope so wild as such a suspicion 
must have confessed. He knew how ill-bred he was, or at any rate, 
if it was impossible for him quite to realize the full knowledge of 
his want of breeding, he knew at least most definitely that he was 
ill-bred, and that the ways of the aristocrat were not his own. His 
book of etiquette made him nervous, for the first time in his life, 
about that terrible letter “ h,” which is such a trouble to so many 
English minds ; and now that he was aware of that social pitfall he 
was forever tumbling into it and wallowing in shame. Now that he 
was near her, the Lady Ella frightened him, and he thought of his. 
own presumption in having dared to love her, with fear and trem- 
bling. The beautiful, graceful creature belonged to another world,, 
or, so it seemed — to an order of which he had not known. She was 
kindly, and pitied the poor fellow’s nervous agonies, but there was 
a something in her manner which he felt as though it had been 
hauteur, and intended — as it never was— to mark the eternal social 
difference between them. 

Yet with all this he fell more and more in love, until the mere 
sentimental fancy which had haunted the lawyer’s clerk became to 
the millionaire an absorbing passion. 

You may be sure that the Earl of Windgall had many hours in 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 69 - 

which his own hopes looked extremely base to him. There are peo- 
ple in the world, as everyone knows, whose geese are all swans, but 
there are also people whose swans are all geese. W indgall had more 
in common with the latter than the former tribe. Perhaps his life- 
long poverty had had something to do with the formation of the 
pessimist opinions he held about everything that belonged to him- 
self, but though he had as little family vanity as most men, he knew 
well enough the distance which separated his daughter from Bol- 
sover Kimberley; and sometimes, when he thought of his own long- 
ing to pass his child through the fire unto Moloch, he would actu- 
ally groan aloud with shame and sudden repentance. And yet what - 
was he to do, after all? No gentleman with his pochets full of 
money came a-wooing. Kimberley was a snob, certainly, but was 
he more of a snob than many men who had actually been received 
into good families? Poverty — cruel spur — galled his flank whenever 
he would fain have turned aside from his own purpose, and there 
was always ready to his hand the sophistical, hypocritical hope that 
nothing would come of the visit, and that Kimberley would go away 
without insulting his host’s pride. We need not think too hardly 
of him because he longed to have his pride insulted and had resolved 
to pocket the insult. Poverty is so hard a master! There are thou- 
sands of men who hold their heads high out of the reach of shame 
for no better reason than that they have a balance at the bank. 
There are thousands more who live seedy, shifty, shameful lives 
for no better reason than continual poverty affords. This theme, 
when one looks closely into it, begins to be tenable. How much of 
virtue is accidental, how much of human baseness unescapable! 
But the Earl of Windgall scarcely supplies the text for so awful a 
sermon. It is certain that if he had been but moderately well-to-do 
for his station he would have been an admirable father. It is cer- 
tain that he had no vulgar love of money, and that in most respects 
he was a blameless man and a good citizen. 

It was worth notice that the people who were severest on his. 
manoeuver with Kimberley had been persuaded aforetime of the 
justice of his action with regard to the suit of the Honorable Jack 
Clare. It was also worth notice that there were few of them — and 
those the wealthier — ^who would not have been pleased to see the 
late lawyer’s clerk approaching their own daughters with matri- 
monial intent. 

Windgall did not care to discount the chances in favor of Kim- 
berley’s falling in love with one of the young ladies by bringing too 
many people to Shouldershott Castle at this time, and the little fel- 
low was there on quite home-like family terms, so that in a little 
while his terror began to wear away. By-and-bye he would prattle 
in an artless, sentimental way with Alice, the Lady Ella’s younger 
sister, and make her the confidante of many of his troubles, though 
never of the greatest. Alice had a touch of good-natured mockery, 
and would imitate Mr. Kimberley to her sister. They both enjoyed 
many a good laugh over him, but were not in the least disposed to 
dislike him. He was not of their world, but he was good-natured 
and obliging, and meek beyond description. It would have been 
difficult to dislike so harmless a creature. 

“I think sometimes,” said Kimberley to Alice one afternoon. 


70 “THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

when he had been domiciled at the castle for a week, “ I think 
sometimes that difference in station is a very cruel thing, miss.” 

“ Why do you think so, Mr. Kimberley?” miss demanded, sup- 
pressing an inclination to laugh. Kimberley looked exceedingly 
embariassed as he spoke. His humble whiskers drooped to a point 
on either side of his blushing countenance, and a loose wisp of 
colorless hair stood up above his forehead, and his nervous eye- 
brows offered their usual apology. 

“ Not as a general rule, 1 don’t,” said Kimberley. “ But before 
1 came into my fortune, if 1 make myself understood, 1 was a 
Liberal in politics, and they used to say that all men are born free 
and equal, and a cobbler is as good as a king. ” 

“ And now, are you a Tory?” said the young lady, smiling. 

“No,” said Kimberley, awkwardly, “1 don’t think so. But 
what I was a goin’ to say — what 1 was going to say was — when I 
began to mix with the hup — the upper classes, I seemed to find there 
was a difference between them and the people 1 was bred up 
amongst. Not as they ain’t — as the}^ are not — as kind, but there’s 
a difference, and they make you feel it.” He blushed all over, and 
clasped his hands between his knees with a nervous gesture. “ I 
speak so awkward,” he said — “ 1 mean so awkwardly. 1 can’t say 
what 1 want to say. 1 was always shy,” he added desperately, 
“ even before 1 came into my fortune, and now 1 am worse than 
ever.” 

A good girl could hardly bear to make fun of so much humility 
when it came thus to sue in farma pauperis, and the young lady an- 
swered with great good nature, 

“You will conquer your shyness in a little while, Mr. Kimber- 
ley.” 

“ 1 wish you’d teach me ’ow — how!” cried Kimberley. 

“ 1 think, ’’she said, “ that shyness is very often a form of vanity. 
Bhy people seem generally to be saying to themselves, ‘ Oh, what do 
people think of me?' and that makes them uncomfortable. Now, 
if I were shy by nature, the first thing I should set myself to do 
would be to teach myself not to think about myself at all. I should 
say, ‘ Think of anybody or anything rather than yourself,’ and by- 
and-bye, when I had grown used to that, 1 should begin to feel quite 
comfortable. To feel shy makes other people unhappy.” 

“ Oh, do you think so?” asked Kimberley. “ I might have done 
what you recommend me to if I’d ’ad the advantage of your advice 
when I— before 1 came into my fortune. But it’s all so different 
now. Money doesn’t make ’apf>iness — happiness, miss.” 

“ Now, shall 1 give you some lessons, Mr. Kimberley?” asked the 
girl. He confessed his shortcomings so openly that there could be no 
shade of insolence in this offer. Kimberley jumped at it. 

“ Oh, will you, miss? If you only would!” 

“ Very well,” she said gayly. “ Now, in the first place you must 
never say ‘miss’ to a lady. Never. And secondly, when you 
make a mistake in speech you must never correct it aloud. That 
only draws attention to it and emphasizes it. And thirdly, you 
must never allude to differences in rank, whether you are talking to 
a duke or a plowboy. I think you would be too good-hearted to 
do it before an inferior. Politeness is good-heartedness polished, 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WOllLD.’^ 71 

that is all, and it is not kind to the dnke to make him see that you 
feel the difference between yourself and him, and that you are 
pained by it.” 

“ You’ve named three things, miss,” said Kimberley. The joun^ 
lady held up a warning finger, and the little man blushed. ” You’ve 
named three things, and I’ve done all of them this last five min- 
utes.” 

It was in this wise that Ella’s sister became Kimberley’s instruct- 
ress, superseding the work on etiquette. Kimberley showed that 
stiiprising publication to the girl one day, and she counseled its im- 
mediate destruction. He obeyed in this as in all things. He was 
cut out for obedience, and felt happier when he was under orders 
than when left to his own devices. 

The servants at Shouldershott Castle knew very well why their 
noble master had invited Bolsover to be his guest, and the people of 
Gal low bay were as wise as his lordship’s servitors. It was known 
in the town that his lordship’s second daughter was setting a most 
industrious cap at the millionaire, and Gallowbay chose to be shocked 
at such a sign of worldly wisdom in one so young. The people who 
had known Kimberley sneered and wondered openly, and he was 
derided and envied and slandered by all hearts and tongues. When 
by chance he came among them, they were all marvelously civil, and 
even those who had no hope of a penny of his mone}^ seemed to take 
pleasure in rubbing against the owner of it, but behind his back they 
aired their knowledge of the world to his disadvantage, and were as 
satirical at his expense as they could manage to be. Mr. Blandy, 
his old employer, was a man who prided himself on discretion, and 
being hopeful of some share of the crumbs from the rich man’s table, 
w\as always loud in Kimberley’s praises, not knowing what bird of 
the air might carry the news of his disinterested affection and es- 
teem to the ears of their object. It has long been known that there 
is no talisman like money for bringing to light the hidden mean- 
nesses of the human heart. 

WindcralTs longing for his own respect would not permit him to 
indulge in frequent praises of his guest, but he found virtues in him 
which he had not expected to find. 

” He’s a good little cad,” his lordship would say to himself, some- 
times; “but, confound him, why does he shrink and tremble and 
kowtow so? He’s afraid of the very stable boys and kitchen wenches, 
and he is hardly more alarmed at me than at the butler. ” 

Many and many an hour of shame the nobleman endured— shame 
for his own hopes, shame lest his girls should read them, and'shame 
that the world at large knew them already. The shame was none 
the less biting because it seemed likely to be wasted and endured 
for nothing. It seemed a thousand to one that Kimberley would 
never summon the courage to propose, even if he had the audacity to 
fall in love; and if he should falsify the earl’s fears of him, was it 
likely that either of the girls would take him? Nothing— and he 
knew that very well— nothing but the strongest pressure from out- 
side would compel either of them to link herself for life with a man 
so apart from her own sphere, so incapable of being friend or com- 
panion. If the girl’s mother had but lived, it would have been her 


•‘ THE Yv AY OF THE WOKLD, 


72 

place to see to these matters, and the unhappy nobleman had never 
felt his widowerhood so keenly as he felt it now. 

Meantime he put a good face upon the matter, and Kimberley 
and he drove or walked together in Gallowbay or the county town 
as if they had been equals. They walked past the very offices in 
which Kimberley had earned his thirty shillings a week, and the 
head of the great hereditary house of Windgali gave no sign. It is 
not only when the enterprise is noble that the conduct may be that 
of a hero. Even a footpad must have a sort of courage. 

One day lilandy saw Windgali anfl the late clerk at a distance, 
and having pulled one glove half on, and settled his hat before the 
mirror into what he thought looked like a hasty angle, waited and 
watched at his ground-floor window, so that he might run out in 
a hurry and encounter them by accident. The two encountering a 
local magnate, and falling into talk with him, kept Mr. Blandy 
waiting for some five minutes, but at last the}'" moved on again, and 
in the nick of time the lawyer made a dash at the door and emerged 
upon the street with great briskness and an expression of intense pre- 
occupation. His sudden recovery of the ordinary aftairs of life, 
and his surprised and humbly gratified recognition of Mr. Kimber- 
ley and his companion, were in their way a work of art. 

“My dear Mr. Kimberley,” he cried, with a sidelong cringe at 
the earl, “ I am delighted to see you, sir. I am charmed to see you 
looking so well. 1 have not had a personal opportunity of offering 
my congratulations; permit me now, though 1 am taken somewhat 
at a disadvantage. It was my felicity, my lord, to instruct Mr. 
Kimberley in the mysteries of the law.” He told everybody since 
his late clerk’s aggrandizement that Kimberley had been articled, 
and would have made a great mark in the profession. ‘ ‘ I am sure, 
my lord, that good fortune never smiled upon worthier shoulders.” 

My lord was not pleasantly impressed with Mr. Blandy ’s brandi- 
fied visage and glib speech, but he was very gracious with him, and 
when Kimberley introduced his late employer b}'' name, Windgali 
bowed and said, “ Any friend of Mr. Kimberley’s, 1 am sure,” 
which sounded civil, little as its words expressed. Mr. Blandy, 
writhing and ducking with his snub features creased into an in- 
gratiatory smile, protested he must have an opportunity of an hour 
or two with his dear Mr. Kimberley. 

“ That is quite natural,” said my lord, affably. “ Should auld 
acquaintance be forgot?” Mr. Blandy bobbed and bowed and 
laughed the flatterer’s laugh. 

“A most appropriate quotation, my lord,” said he, “if I may 
venture on the impertinence of saying so.” 

“ Don’t let me be in your way, Kimberley,” said the earl, with a 
familiar hand on the little millionaire’s shoulder. “ He will be more 
at home with this marionette of a fellow than he is with me,” he 
thought, “and I shall be glad to be free of hiiy for an hour or 
two.” He fancied that Kimberle 5 "’s hesitation of manner arose from 
a dread of seeming discourteous in preferring Blandy’s company. 
“ You’d like to spend an hour with Mr. Blandy?” he said aloud. 

“ Leave him to me for the afternoon and evening, my lord,” said 
Mr. Blandy, with a blending of something waggish with the 
humility of his tone. “ He shall be sent on to Shouldershott Castle 


'THE WAT OF THE WORLD.” 


7 ^- 


in the evening, my lord, quite safely. Really you must eat your 
mutton with me this evening, Mr. Kimberley. You can’t refuse an, 
old friend so small a favor. Can he, my lord?” 

“ Well, then,” said Windgall, still misreading Kimberley’s awk- 
ward and embarrassed silence, ‘ ‘ we won’t look for you until even- 
ing, Kimberley. Good-by until then. Good day, sir.” My lord 
walked on, convinced that he had done a kindness to his guest, and 
assured, on better grounds, that he himself was pleased. 

“Come in, Mr. Kimberley,” cried Blandy. “You remember 
the old room, eh? Ha, ha! Here it stands still, you observe. The 
same old room still. Do you remember, Mr. Kimberley, the last 
deed you engrossed in this apartment? 1 keep it still, as a memen- 
to. You left off at the con in consideration, and 1 determined it 
should never be touched again.” 

This sentimental proceeding on the part of Mr. Blandy was not 
quite in consonance with what Kimberley remembered of him, but 
it was explainable by the fact that the intending purchaser had gone 
bankrupt a day or two after Kimberley’s accession to fortune, so 
that the deed had no longer been needed. The late clerk, recalling 
this fact to mind, was smitten with a sense of vicarious shame and 
emotion, to which he was easily liable. 

“We talk of you every day,” cried Mr. Blandy, respectfully 
familiar and genial. “ Mrs. Blandy speaks of you, if I may say so, 
as a son. It was beneath this roof that most of the years of your 
early manhood were spent, Mr. Kimberley; and though you have 
inscribed a flight so lofiy upon the scroll of society' and wealth, we 
cannot be unmindful of the fact. No, sir, no; we nurse that privi- 
ege, believe me. Believe me, sir, we nurse it.” 

Mr. Blandy had not been any better or much worse a master than 
the ordinal y run of country solicitors are, but he was a crossgrained 
creature, who bullied when he could, and Kimberley had always 
been afraid of him. He felt a little more afraid of him now than 
ever, and yet he feigned to be gratified by the man’s transparent 
humbug, and did his best to smile at his pretended friendship. 

“ Excuse me for one second, Mr. Kimberley,” said the solicitor, 
“just one solitary second,” as though to have him out of sight for a 
longer space were a thing unbearable to think of. Mr. Kimberley 
assenting with a disturbed smile and a disjointed nod, iMr. Blandy 
bustled from the room and seized the office-boy in the next apart- 
ment. “ Run to the ‘ Windgall Arms,’ Robert, and tell the landlord 
to send down at once. Let me see. Yes.” He wrote an order for 
half a dozen of champagne and a bottle each of port and burgundy. 
“ At once. You are to wait and come back with ’em. Nowg you 
be back in five minutes, my hoy, or I’ll lace your jacket for you.” 
The boy dispatelxd, Mr. Blandy returned to his guest. “ This way, 
sir, if you please. Ah! you know the way, Mr. Kimberley, as well 
as I do. This house w'as your boyhood’s home, so to speak, sir. 
My dear, jMr. Bolsover Kimberley revisits his old home.” Mm. 
Blandy, fat and fift}'’, arose with a little scream of welcome when 
her husband threw open the drawing-room door with this announce- 
ment, and welcomed the millionaire with tw'O plump hands out- 
stretched. 


74 “"THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’' 

“ How do you do, ma’am?” said Kimberley, breaking silence for 
the first time since his encounter with his old employer. 

“ My deal' Mr. Kimberley,” shrilled the lady, “ 1 knew we should 
not be forgotten.” 

“We were sure of that, Maria,” said Mr. Blandy, with consider- 
able feeling. ‘ ‘ For one day Mr. Kimberley is content to leave the 
society of his loftier friends to enjoy the humble hospitality of the 
companions of earlier days. Permit me to take your hat, sir. Maria, 
if you don’t mind taking the trouble, perhaps you had better take 
the cellar keys yourself and bring up a bottle of champagne. The 
extra sec, my love, you know.” A swift wink in answer to Mrs. 
Blandy’s momentary look of bewilderment set the lady’s mind at 
rest, and, with a hospitable smile bestowed on Kimberley, she slided 
from the room with a joyous little skip at the doorway, expressive 
of affection and alacrity. “Excuse me for one second, Mr. Kim- 
berley,” cried the solicitor anew, “for just one solitary second.” 
He slipped through the open door. “ Robert is gone to the 
‘ Windgall ’ for it,” he whispered. 

Mrs. Blandy was wont to be extremely angry when Mr. Blandy 
proposed to introduce at his own table the beverages he loved, but 
she smiled so gi’aciouslj^ at this that the fancy crossed the solicitor’s 
mind like a sigh — what joy it would be to have a millionaire in 
the house as a regular thing! When he re-entered the room Kim- 
berley was nervously pulling at his gloves, and he put him officiously 
into a chair, with a hospitable hand on either shoulder. 

“ A woman of a rare good heart is Mrs. Blandy,” he said, seating 
himself opposite to Kimberley, ‘ ‘ a woman of a rare good heart, sir, 
though 1 say it who should not. It isn’t in that woman’s nature to 
forget a friend, sir. No; she couldn’t forget a dog who had enjoyed 
the hospitality of her roof.” It seemed to occur with some force to 
Mr. Blandy that this w^as scarcely the way in wdiich he would have 
chosen to express hiniself if he had taken more time about it, for he 
blushed fiefily, and was fain to cover his confusion by a fit of cough- 
ing. Kimberley was on thorns alike for the pretender and himself. 
The shy, sensitive little soul had never pretended in his life, unless 
indeed it had been in that helpful and tender way in which pretense 
becomes surely one of the best of virtues, and he knew well enough 
the coarse and sordid meaning which laj’' at the bottom of his host’s 
welcome. Mr. Blandy had never professed to like him until now, 
but had treated him with a contempt which the clerk had always 
felt to be natural and befitting. Everybody had despised him and 
made little of him, and he had grown used to it, and had come to 
regard it as inevitable, and even proper for him. When strangers 
kotowed to him, he felt the sting of unfamiliar usage, but not as he 
did now, for with strangers the sense of contrast was absent. 

“Do you propose to stay long at the Castle, Mr. Kimberley?” 
asked the lawyer, when he had a little recovered from his confusion. 

“ Lord V\'‘indgall has been good enough,” said Kimberley, shame- 
facedly, “ to ask me to stay for the shooting in September.” 

“ Ah!” said Mr. Blandy, rubbing his knees, as if to get the aris- 
tocratic idea well into his system. “ You find him affable? A 
noble house, the Windgalls, Mr. Kimberley. It is an honor to 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 75 

entertain a guest of Lord Windgall’s beneath this roof, sir, if only 
for a day/’ 

Kimberley sat and suffered under Mr. Blandy’s compliments until 
Mrs. Blandy returned bearing a bottle of champagne, and following 
closely on a ring at the door and a clanging sound of bottles there. 

“ 1 am afraid you thought me a dreadful time, Mr. Kimberley,” 
cried the lady, with a giggle, ” but I had mislaid the cellar keys and 
had to hunt high and low for them. I’m afraid you’ll think me a 
dreadful housekeeper, but 1 assure you it’s years since such a thing 
happened.” 

” So long ago, my dear,” said Mr. Blandy, with ponderous play- 
fulness, ” that I fail to recall the time.” 

Kimberley, rising nervously from the chair into which Mr. Blandy 
had placed him, looked out of window, and saw the Blandy wine- 
cellar on the back of the hostler of the ” VVindgall Arms.” He was 
not of a penetrating or suspicious turn of mind by nature, but in 
spite of himself he knew how the wine came, and the little humbug 
seemed typical to him of the greater, and his flesh crawled as he 
thought of it. He was indeed so keenly shamed in his nervous and 
sensitive heart, that he longed for courage to run away, and being 
unable to summon it sat down again with a revolving wheel in his 
head, and submitted himself to misery. 

There are thousands of satirical people alive who have been 
amused by such pretenses; there are many who have observed this 
identical pretense, which has flgured in comedy a hundred times or 
more, and have been* duly tickled by its discovery. But Kimberley 
was so framed by nature that when he saw through a little meanness 
of that kind— and, happily for himself, he saw but rarely — he en- 
dured in his own person all the shames and discomforts which he 
would have suffered had he been the sinner hnd detected. He upset 
and broke a champagne glass in his agitation, and was so over- 
whelmed by this catastrophe that for a moment he had a wild idea 
of offering to pay for the damage on the spot — an inspiration which 
turned him hot and cold for years afterward whenever he remem- 
bered it. Mr. Blandy would listen to no apologies for this mishap, 
and Mrs. Blandy treated it so lightly and cheerfully, and rattled away 
to other topics with so much vivacity, that, between his agitation 
and the accident and his bewilderment in attempting to follow the 
lady’s speech, the shy millionaire was well-nigh out of his senses. 
But the weariest houi*s will wear away, and the dreadful afternoon 
crawled on for Kimberley. He was so betrowelled by his host and 
hostess that he had a physical longing to go away and bathe himself. 
Their compliments seemed to thicken and stiffen upon him like 
birdlime. 

Mr. Blandy besought his guest to drink, and meeting with a poor 
response to his entreaties did his best to atone for Kimberley’s short- 
comings, so that by the time the dinner was served the lawyer’s 
brandifled nose was redder and his swollen eyes moister than com- 1 
mon, whilst he grew in affection, and became more mendacious in | 
his memories of Auld Lang Syne with every glass he emptied.^ He | 
had loved Kimberley like a son — he called Mrs. Blandy to witn^s 
how often he had said so. Kimberley might, if he pleased, verify 
this statement further by an appeal to Dr. Smith, to the landlord, 


76 ^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

and landlady at the “ Windgall Arms,” to the whole world of Gal- 
lowbay. He had seen hidden qualities in the young man, he had 
prophesied loftier things for him, he had stood up for him again 
and again; he had drummed and clarioned for Kimberley for many 
years, when, perhaps, the object of all this solicitude had little 
dreamed of iiis affection. Tlie wretched man. of money scarcely 
opened his lips, but his heart bled and writhed above this liar and 
impostor. He felt no resentment, as a stronger man would have 
done, no amusement, as a man of humor might; the day was a revel 
of shame, and the bitter potion was held persistently to his lips to 
be emptied over and over and oyer again. But the crown of sorrow 
had yet to be laid upon his brow. 

]Vlfs, Blandy had retired, and the lawyer, with eyes that by this 
time looked hard-boiled, sat noisily sucking at an unlighted cigar, 
and tilled and emptied his glass with dreadful rapidity. 

“ Kimbly, my dear boy — you lemme caU you Kimbiy, won’ you? 

. — I shall live to see you occupying exshremely lofiy station. Know 
I shall. Win’gall’s a very fly ole bird, Kimbly. Win’gall can see 
as far through a milestone’s most men. Don’t mind me calling him 
Win’gall, do you? His lor’ship always meant have the Gallowbay 
’state, Kimbly. He meant have it wheh young Bolsover was alive, 
and he means to have it now. We don’t live at Should’shott Castle, 
but we know a thing or two, m^ boy. Nev’ you minow we know 
it, Kimbly — s’long’s we know it. Sha, shawlright. Must say we 
didn’t expect see him do the trick in quite such a barefaced way; 
but then, of course, he’s as poor as Job — poorah, grea’ deal poorah. 
Wonrer how he keeps his head ’bove warer. But he’ll nail you, 
Kimbly, me boy, as sure’s you’re ’live. Young lady seems be quite 
willin’ too, doesn’t she? It’s always been a sort of trarition with the 
VYin’galls, to be poor, an’ proud, an’ pretty. Poor-prown-prirry — 
that’s family niorro. I’m a lill bit ’fected when 1 think seeing my 
dear Kimbly ’nited marriage noble family. That’s what makes me 
talk like this. Can’t speak quite plain when I’m affected’s 1 am at 
this moment. But the noble earl’ll nail you f’ one o’ the girls, 
Kimbly. 1 bleeve you’re a gone coon already, ole man. ’Gratulate 
you, all my heart. Gob less you.” 

Kimberley escaped this oppressive host, and walked to the hotel 
where he had already ordeied a carriage to convey him to Shoulder- 
shott Castle. He walked and rode in a degradation of soul. Was 
.it possible that this lofty gentleman, this peer of the realm, could be 
so coarsely and openly bent on securing him and his money that 
the whole world should see it and know of it? Why else should he 
, be so friendly with bo poor a creature? What had Kimberley, he 
asked himself, bitterly, to recommend him but his money? Was he 
olever? Was he handsome? Was he a gentleman? Was he a fit 
companion for people who were nobly bred? No, no, no, to all these 
bitter queries. He was a poor little snob, whom nature meant to 
lead a life of drudgery and poverty, to be snubbed and disdained 
when regarded, but for the most part to be left alone. It was bitter, 
oh, it was bitter to have been lifted from that simple contentment he 
had known, to be made the target of such base tongues and the 
center of such shameful hopes. He cried to think of these things, 
as he sat in his carriage alone. But then triumphing over his mis- 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’- 77 

eries came the fancy — he could have his dream of love — his lunatic 
fancy ; he had cried for the moon, and now he could have it by 
asking for it. Was the news true? And if true, dare he ask? 


CHAPTER X. 

‘ ‘ Kimberley, ’ ’ said the Earl of Windgall to his guest one fine morn- 
ing as they walked in the park together, “ you oujrht to go into pub- 
lic life. You should stand for Gallowbay. Has it ever occurred to 
you to think of it?” 

This had no more occurred to Kimberley than the notion that he 
should offer himself as a candidate for the throne of China, and the 
mere suggestion of it took his breath away. 

“ No, my lord,” he answered, after a frightened pause, “ I can’t 
say I have. In fact, 1 haven’t.” 

The popular opinion that his daughter Alice was the object of 
Kimberley’s attentions had not left Windgall altogether untouched, 
and since it had come to seem possible that his mean hope might be 
realized, and that the millionaire would at least ask for one of the 
girls, my lord was ready to throw the little man at the world in a 
spirit of desperation. Let people see at once what manner of man 
he was, and if they wanted to laugh at him and to sneer at the noble- 
man who had made so open a bid for his money, let them get the 
laugh and the sneer both over, and have done with them! There 
was, besides, some faint hope in his mind that by attrition with the 
world Kimberley might even yet be rubbed into something like the 
usual shape. Painfully laboring to think well of his guest, in order 
that his own meanness might seem the less revolting to him, he dis- 
covered in poor Bolsover a score of good qualities. He was truthful 
to a hair, in spite of his painful shyness, and considering his dreadful 
breeding his sense of honor was remarkably delicate. It was not 
Windgall ’s fault that he had been told that a sense of honor was 
chiefly an aristocratic belonging, and it was not wholly his fault 
that he had believed it. Then Kimberley was generous, and most 
eager to help and oblige. He was amiable and tender-hearted, ♦and 
slow to take offense. His money had not set him cock a- whoop — 
suddenly as it came. He never bullied a servant, or presumed upon 
his wealth to be insolent to a gentleman. All these and many more 
. admirable characteristics the earl discovered in Kimberley, knowing 
perfectly all the while that if he himself had had a little more money 
he would never have taken the trouble to discover them. 

Within the last few years a great change has come over the British 
House of Commons, and it is no longer the first assemblage of gen- 
tlemen in Europe. It may be a very bad thing, or it may be a very 
good thing, but it no longer prides itself upon being an assemblage 
of gentlemen. It includes many who have every imaginable claim 
to tlie title, and some who have no claim and make no claim at all. 
So that it is no long*er a proud thing to write M.P. after one’s name, 
as it once was. Low people, actually sprung from the people, have 
had the audacity at most times in the history of the House to sit 
there as the people’s representatives ; but there was a time when 
they were less numerous than they are now, and when to secure a 


78 


way of thk woiIld.’’ 

seat in that august assemblage was to give one’s self a certain cachet 
of respectability. Windgall, in his time, had been too much within 
the life political to attach a veiy superstitious reverence to the sen- 
timent, but he knew that it existed, and that JBolsover Kimberley, 
M.P., would be a person of measurably more consideration than 
Bolsover Kimberley plain and unadorned. With the common crowd 
it makes a difference still — the letters have a sort of magic even now; 
but a short time ago they had their weight with people in a higher 
sphere, and a member of parliament was a recognizable somebod;^. 
The distinction was, of course, trivial to a nobleman’s view, but it 
was something. Pococatapeth would make light of the difference 
between Snowdon and a molehill, but the difference is there all the 
same, and a philosophically-minded mountain might acknowledge it. 

“ I have not yet heard a murmur from the press,” said Windgall, 
“ but we shall have a dissolution shortly. Bosworth is old, and not 
too plentifully furnished with money. 1 have it from his own lips 
that he will not contest another election, and there is a Major Heard 
who is talked about as being certain to fight in the Liberal interest.” 

“Major Heard is a very good man, my lord/’ said Kimberley, 
scarcely knowing what he said. “ I should vote for Major Heard.” 

This was awkward, and it took his lordship a silent minute to 
digest it. The Windgalls had always been Tory, and he could not 
back Kimberley if he were Liberal. This was the first political talk 
they had had together. 

“ I had thought,” said his lordship, “ that you were a Liberal- 
Conservative, Kimberley. Surely you would uphold the throne?” 

“ Certainly, my lord,” cried Kimberley with vivacity. The potion 
of ambition began to work in his blood with a perplexing current 
already. If he could only dare to think of being a member of par- 
liament and addressing crowded audiences in the Gallowbay Town 
Hall! “ 1 should certainly uphold the throne, my lord.” He began 
to flush and tremble again. After all, even he might be somebody. 

“ You would support property?” said my lord. “ There are wild 
fellows who are beginning to talk about the abolition of property. 
A man in your position could scarcely ally himself with that crew.” 

. 1 think, my lord,” stammered Kimberley, “ that all vested in- 

terests ought to be respected.” He had been used to read the lead- 
ers in his weekly paper, and he had even taken part in j)olitical dis- 
cussions at the Young Men’s Christian Association. 

“ Precisely!” cried Windgall. “Precisely! The sentiment in a 
nutshell.” Kimberley felt flattered. “ All vested interests must be 
respected.’" Thus sanctioned in familiar talk by noble lips, the sen- 
timent received additional force. When Kimberley had spoken it he 
had felt a glow of public spirit, and the words reflected it. But 
when Windgall echoed them they took an almost sacred luster. A 
mixed metaphor, but a palpable fact expressed in it, 

“ But,” said Kimberley, a minute later, “ the poor ought to be 
taken care of, hadn’t they, my lord? That’s what 1 think the ’Ouse 
of Commons ought to do — look after the poor.” 

“ That is undoubtedly one of the functions of good government,” 
my lord allowed. “ But the legislature of this country — and this is 
its proudest boast — exists alike for the benefit of the poor and the 


‘'THE WAY OE THE WOKLD/’ 79 

rich, the humble and the lofty. It works for the general good, with- 
out distinction of class diiferences. ” 

Kimberley came to wonder later on what really was the proudest 
boast of the legislature of this country — it had so many, and its 
admirers were so certain that each of them was the proudest. He 
was in a mighty flutter still at Windgall’s suggestion, and in his 
mind’s eye he saw a crowded hall, with himself upon the platform, 
and on his mental ear fell the sound of cheering, whilst the figure on 
the platform dug one hand into its ribs and rested the other on the 
table in that graceful attitude he had always admired in Major 
Heard. But the fancy made his head swim, and he thought that he 
could never, never dare to be so conspicuous. 

“ Gallowbay would be a certain seat for you,” pursued the earl, 
after a little pause. “ Half the voters are your tenants, and if you 
chose to avail yourself of my name — ” Kimberley blushed and 
bowed. It would be useless to try to hide the fellow away, his lord- 
ship was thinking. Better stick him up on a pedestal at once, and 
let everybody see him, and so get the wonder over. “Our politics, 
of course, must not vary too widely,” he said, with a genial laugh; 
“ but that is a matter which is easy of accommodation. When you 
come into political life you will find that in the main all parties have 
one object, and that is to keep office when they have it, or to regain 
it when they have lost it. The fight is to secure the confidence of 
the people, and that fact makes it certain that an appreciable amount 
of work will be done somehow. To my mind the constitution is 
very like the land, and the parties are very like the sea. They rave 
and rage about it, they wash away a bit here and a bit there, but 
they build up somewhere else. But 1 am not much in earnest as a 
practical politician, and I must not try to make you a Sadducee like 
myself.” 

Kimberley failed to understand something of this, yet it was 
pleasant to be talked to in such wise by one who had an hereditary 
place in the legislature. 

“ So far as 1 make out your politics, Kimberley,” said the earl, 
stopping to confront him, and telling off the points by tapping the 
gold knob of his walking-cane with a pair of folding glasses, “ they 
indicate this. You are, first and foremost, loyal to the throne. You 
don’t want to abolish the House of Lords, or to compel the Prince 
of Wales to dig for his living, or any nonsense of that sort?” 

“ Oh dear no, my lord,” protested Kimberley, almost as scandal- 
ized as if the query had been an accusation. 

“ Of course not,” said my lord. “ Of course not. But you are 
a friend to the laboring classes. You think that their condition needs 
some amelioration — that they should have increased educational 
facilities, be better fed, better housed, perhaps better paid than they 
are in some cases. These are, in the rough, your main opinions’? 
Then 1 should say that you are emphatically a Liberal- Conservative, 
and that your place is with the traditional supporters of law and 
order and the traditional friends of the people.” 

Kimberley murmured that he was certainly friendly disposed to 
law and order, and the people, but hinted that he thought himself 
much more Liberal than Conservative. 


80 ‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

“ In point of fact,” said Windgall, “you are resolved to main- 
tain your political independence. ” 

Kimberley was vaguely pleased at this, and felt somehow an inch 
or two taller by reason of it. 

“ You decline to submit to the dictates of mere party spirit. You 
are an ardent supporter of the throne, and a champion of the rights 
of the people. To questions of party you decline to tie yourself. 
Exactly — exactly. You take the wise man’s attitude; liberal in the 
admission of wise and necessary changes, but conservative of the 
great traditions of our empire and our race.” 

Kimberley liked the picture of himself, and for a second he held 
his head up and threw out his wide expanse of scarf. Then the 
dread of it all got hold of him again. What an awful ordeal the 
hustings would be, to be sure! Oh, he dared not face it— he dared 
not even think of facing it! And yet the prospect was full of temp- 
tation. There is scarcely any human creature so small, so timid, as 
to be quite out of the way of ambition. Tender little girls in the 
nursery read of the deeds of great warriors, and would fain assume 
a masculine disguise and go out to fight and conquer. The feeblest 
folk have beaten their big enemies in that shadow world in which 
whosoever enters grows strong and stalwart and as good as his neigh- 
bor, if not a great deal better. It is not often that the very feeble 
and fearful have the chance of being ambitious thrust upon them as 
Kimberley had. If he began to make political speeches to himself, 
beginning and very often' ending with “ My lord and gtntlemen,” 
was it very greatly to be wondered at? Half the voters of Gallow- 
bay were his tenants. Lord Windgall was willing to lend him the 
influence of his name. The expense would be a mere flea-bite. If 
he could screw his courage to the sticking-point, he would dare any- 
thing, for — might not a member of parliament be somewhat nearer 
Ella? 

Everything was very much in the air to my lord at present, as a 
matter of course. Kimberley might not propose, and even if he did 
the girl might flatly decline him, and in that case what could a 
father do? Clearly, nothing at all. He was not an ogre, living in 
an enchanted castle, and prepared to hand over his daughter to the 
demon of the glen. An English gentleman ot modern days is re- 
stricted in the bestowal of his children. Windgall who loved his 
girls and asked nothing better than that they should be oil his hands 
and be happy, could only let affairs take their course — could at most 
offer a little mild reason in behalf of the excellent claims presented 
by a million and a quarter sterling. 

As for Kimberley, he moved in a new world, and was, as most - 
people would be under like conditions, excessively uncomfortable. 

Blandy’s drunken utterances repeated themselves in his mind, 
and even whilst they revolted him they brought him hope. It was 
hard to think it possible that the nobly born should be mercenary; 
it was harder still to be sure that nothing but his money would have 
secured him their most momentary regard; and it was foolishly, 
dangerously sweet to think that these humiliations brought him 
within reach of love.. He had never fairly realized the value of his 
money, and w^hen his day dreams were of making Ella happy with 
it, he would impoverish himself at a swoop by the purchase of some 


81 


^^THE WAY OF THE WOELD/’ 

great gem, and having earned the right to kneel before her and kiss 
her hands he would go back to his clerkship. It seemed too absurd 
to think of her as purchasable by money. If his hourly income had 
equalled his whole fortune he would still have been jwor when he 
thought of her, for that she should drink from hollowed stones of 
unheard-of value, and eat from dishes of prodigious pearl, seemed a 
sort of essentia], and he would have hired the world to wait upon 
her. 

To tell the truth, the unoffending little man’s lot was a sad one. 
To be burdened with sudden wealth — to love out of his own sphere, 
to be fired with ambition — he was a weakling — he was fit for no one 
of these things. 

That evening, in the pleasant summer dusk, Windgall, Ella, Alice, 
and Kimberley were on the lawn behind the castle— the earl pacing 
up and down with Ella by his side, and Kimberley walking by my 
lord’s second daughter. The two pairs were at some little distance 
from each other, so that a conversation in a low tone might be car- 
ried on by either without being heard by the other; and yet they 
were near enough to address each other without effort if they chose. 
Kimberley scarcely ever spoke to Ella, and the girl, if she thought 
about him at all, may have been apt to fancy that he disliked her. 

“ You are very mournful this evening, Mr. Kimberley,” said the 
young lady. Mr. Kimberley had twice or thrice sighed involun- 
taril3^ 

”1 do feel a little mournful, re’ly,” he responded. He had 
hardly ever been so much at ease wifh anybody in his life as this 
young lady made him. She rallied him a good deal to be sure, but 
she did it in such a way that it saved him from embarrassment. He 
confessed his shortcomiugs to her, as we have seen already, and her 
advice and instruction had superseded the book on etiquette. Since 
he had first come to Shouldershott Castle she had been his most fre- 
quent companion, and she had an odd sort of liking for him. He 
■was different from the people she generally met, but she had not 
seen enough of vulgar people to know a great deal about them, and 
Kimberle 3 ’-’s faults of speech and bearing were idiosyncrasies to her 
mind, and not characteristic of an inferior class. Do you suppose 
that an earl’s daughter is certain to recognize the social gulf which 
exists between a solicitor and a copying-clerk? 

“ Of what is your melancholy compounded, Mr. Kimberley?” she 
asked. “ The scholar’s melancholy is emulation, the musician’s is 
fantastical, the courtier’s is proud, the soldier’s is ambitious, and, 
let me see, the lady’s is nice— but that can scarcely be yours — and 
the lawyer’s is polite, and the lover’s is everything that the others 
are. lam talking Shakespeare, Mr. Kimberley.” This w’as half 
an apology, for she was suddenly afraid that she was out of his 
depth. 

“ Oh yes,” said Kimberley, ” I read Shakespeare a good deal.” 

” Do you?” cried the lady, a little suiqwised. 

” 1 don’t suppose 1 understand him like — like you do,” said the 
little man, bashfully. ” But 1 know ‘ To be or not to be ’ by ’art, 
and ‘ Friends, Romans, Countrymen,’ in Julius Ccesar. Oh, 1 think 
him and Lord Byron are beautiful. ‘ She walks in beautj^ like the 
night,’ ain’t that a lovely poem. Miss Santerre?” 


82 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


it 

“ I suppose that a man would think so,’’ said the girl with some 
naivete; “ hut ladies do not care much for descriptions of other 
ladies. When the poets describe a man, like young Hotspur — ‘ Me- 
thinks it was an easy leap to pluck bright honor from the pale-faced 
moon ’ — that is when they please a lady, Mr. Kimberley.” 

She indicated the pale-faced moon by a little wave of her fan— the 
bright satellite was just peering about the trees — and Kimberley 
sighed again, as he looked at it. The thought touched hini sud- 
denly — how very, very different all his life was from what it had 
used to be. There was for the moment an ineffable sweetness and 
gratitude in his heart. To be so beautifully clad, to walk on this 
soft lawn beneath this pleasant sky, and to interchange thoughts on 
such themes as these with such a companion, and to know that he 
enjoyed no ephemeral holiday! It was better than the dry drudgeiy 
at the desk. For awhile it consoled him for all the troubles his 
money had brought him. 

Meantime Ella and her father strolled apart without saying much 
to each other, but at this point Windgall made a slight detour and 
widened the distance between the pairs. When he spoke it was 
with a perfect affectation of commonplace. 

“ Alice and Mr. Kimberley appear to be very good friends?” 

“ Ver3' good friends,” assented Ella. 

“ 1 like the little fellow immensely,” said my lord. “He is full 
of good qualities. It is a secret as j^et, but I think he will stand for 
Gallowbay at the next election, and 1 shall be glad to see him win.” 

“ He will not make a very brilliant member of parliament, papa,” 
said Ella, with half a laugh. 

“ The House of Commons is not in want of brilliant people just 
at present,” her father answered. “ To my way of thinking, it is 
somewhat dark with excess of light * already, and most of the brill- 
iant personages carry their heads in their lanterns, so that a man 
who does not boast a lantern of his own is likely to see as well as 
the best of them. He is a considerable landowner, and, being a 
quiet fellow, would at least fill one seat which might otherwise be 
occupied by some blatant cobbler who wants to abolish everything 
but leather and the lap-stone.” 

“1 should think,” said Ella, “that from the cobbler’s point of 
view that might be natural.” 

“ Indubitably,” cried my lord, with a chuckle. “ The fox would 
abolish the hounds and conserve the hencoop, and the rooster would 
no doubt be contented to see fox and hounds abolished together, but 
w'ould protect agricultural interests in order to secure a plentiful 
growth of barley. Well, will j^ou wear the colors of the Castle can- 
didate, my dear?” 

“With pleasure,” said Ella. “It is fortunate that blue is not 
our color. I am afraid that even political principle could scarcely 
persuade me to wear blue, but it is pleasant to wear one’s favorite 
color and be loyal at the same time.” 

“I suppose,” said Windgall, laughing quite gayly at the fancy, 
but shaking in a softened tone, ‘ ‘ that our little friend will be 
marrying by-and-by. You and Alice are not likely to pull caps over 
him?” Ella looked up with an amused smile, but said nothing. 
Somehow the smile chilled his lordship, and froze the current of ms 


""THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 83 

gayety for a minute. “You laughed just now,” lie said, when 
they had taken a silent turn along the sward; “ hut let me tell you, 
my dear, that there are scores of very charming young women who 
tiiivy you and Alice the chance of being locked up in this lonely old 
house with a millionaire.” 

It was spoken with an excellent tone of badinage, but Ella found 
something in the speech she scarcely liked. 

“It might lessen the pains of those charming people,” she an- 
swered, “ to know how lightly we esteem the privilege.” 

“ Well, well,” said the earl, “ he won’t vrant to run away with 
the pair of you!” He thought she had partly read his mind, and 
he knew that he had not committed himself. “If anything hap- 
pens,” he murmured inwardly, “ she will have grown used to think 
of it, and will be less likely to frighten Alice from the scheme.” 

Kimberley and the younger of the two girls were still walking up 
and down together, and were deep in the shadow of the trees. A 
nightingale was singing not far away, and Kimberley paused in step 
and speech to listen. 

“Oh!” he said, “it’s beautiful. I do declare, Miss Santerre, it 
feels almost wicked to be here and be so ’appy, when there’s so 
many as are poor and un’appy. Don’t you feel like that?” He 
was nine tenths ashamed of all he said and thought. 

“ Could we make them happier by refusing to listen to the bird’s 
song?” she as^ked. 

“ No,” he said, “1 don’t mean that. It’s me having so much • 
money, and some ’aving none at all. There’s people without bread 
this very minute while we talk. Miss Santerre.” 

The nightingale began to sing again, and they paused again to 
listen. The moonlight gleamed like frost among the branches and 
the leaves, and the patterned cai-pet of black and gold swayed at 
their feet. Kimberley looked out into the full glow of the moon- 
light, and there stood Ella by her father’s side, gazing skyward and 
listening. The little man’s heart ached with sweet anguish and 
helpless worship and desire. To be worthy of her for one second 
and then to die— to do some great deed of heroism land vanish, 
shriveled in the heat of it— or to die then and there while the moon 
shone and the bird sang — he could not have said which would be 
the sweeter. How wonderfully impartial in the greater things great 
Nature is, to be sure! She has nothing to do with the anise and 
cumin— rank and wealth are not in her province— but in the 
weightier matters not many are forgotten. 

Nobody can be relied upon always to act up to his character. 
Courage fails, the coward fights like a lion, the forehead of brass is 
lowered in shame, and the shy man, with whom it is an effort to 
say “ Good morning,” will reveal the innermost thoughts of his 
soul. Kimberley heaved a great sigh, and his companion turned 
with girlish drollery : 

“ Do you know how contradictory you are this evening, Mr. Kim- 
berley? A quarter of an hour since you sighed and confessed your- 
self a little mournful; two or three minutes back you felt it wicked 
to feel so happy; and now you are sighing again.” 

“ Oh, Miss Santerre,” broke out Kimberley, “you’ve been so 
kind to me; you ’aven’t laughed at me, or stood off, or been ’aughty 


84 ‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

with me, and if 1 don’t tell somebody I shall — Oh, Miss Santerre, 
you won’t laugh at me? You won’t tell anybody? You won’t 
mind me telling you?” 

'iou shall tell me whatever you please, Mr. Kimberley,” said 
the girl kindly, “ and 1 am sure 1 shall not want to laugh at you. 
And of course,” with a tempered severity, ” 1 shall respect whatever 
confidence you may offer me. ” 

■“ Oh, Miss Santerre,” he began again, ” when I was poor I was 
a clerk in Mr. Blandy’s office, and I used only to get five and thirty 
shillings a week, and of course it was ’opeless to think of marrying 
on that, because 1 never could bear to think of bringing up a family 
of children on nothing, so to speak, and letting them be reared like 
I was. So I kep’ single, though 1 did think about one or two youn^ 
ladies. But before ever 1 dreamed of ’aving my present fortune 1 
saw a lady in a very lofty rank of life, and 1 fell in love with her. 
I’d never spoken to her, but I’d heard her speak, and I’d looked at 
her a hundred times, though of course she never took any notice of 
me. She never dreamed I had the face to fall in love with her. 
She didn’t know there was such a person.” He groaned there, and 
rubbed his wet fingers together. 

“ And have you seen her since you became possessed of your fort- 
\me?” asked the young lady. Kimberley was not a very romantic 
personage to look at, and yet he had a romance after all, and he was 
so obviously in earnest that it would have been cruel to be less than 
sympathetic. 

“ Offen ail’ offen,” said Kimberley. “ But I ain’t a gentleman. 
Miss Santerre, not if I could paper my walls with thousand-pound 
Bank of England notes. It isn’t money that makes a gentleman. 
It’s bringing up and education; and she is a lady, and she’d never 
look at me. And while I was poor it didn’t matfer so much, be- 
cause it was like being in love in a dream, wasn’t it? And now it’s 
worse, because I’ve met her, and she talks kind to me; and yet she’s 
further off than ever, for she is in a very lofty rank of life, and 
compared by the side of that money isn’t anything, is it. Miss San- 
terre? I never spoke to a soul before, and you’re the first lady ever 
was free and pleasant with me, and I wanted to tell somebody, be- 
cause I ’ave been so un’appy.” 

There Kimberley ended, blowing his nose and mopping his eyes 
with unconcealed emotion. 

” Do you know what I should do if I were in your place, Mr. 
Kimberley?” asked his companion. 

^ ” Ko,” said Kimberley, meekly. 

” I should march,” said the young lady, drawing up her pretty 
figure to its height, “straight to that lady’s house, and I should 
speak my mind, and ask her for a plain ‘ yes ’ or ‘ no. ’ That is 
what I should do, Mr. Kimberley, and that is what you will do, if 
jmu have half the courage I credit you with.” 

“ Alice, my dear,” said my lord, from the other side of the spa- 
cious lawns, “ the dew is falling rather heavily. We had best go 
indoors.” 

“ Remember the proverb, Mr. Kimberley,” said Alice, touching 
him lightly on the sleeve as they crossed the grass in answer to his 
summons, “ ‘ Faint heart never won fair lady.’ ” 


85 


‘‘the way of the world.” 

*‘My lord,” said Kimberley, “shall we stay out a minute? 1 
should like to speak to you.” 

“Certainly,’* answered Windgall, “certainly. Run indoors, 
girls.” Ella and Alice twined an arm about each other, and went 
out of moonlight into lamplight. “ What is it, Kimberley?” 

The millionaire had meant then and there to speak, but a great 
chasm of terror seemed to open in his soul and all his courage to fall 
into it. For a little while he walked beside the nobleman deaf and 
empty and blind, and his tongue was like dried wood. When at 
hist he found the wit to speak he had to seize the first thing that 
came. 

“ You think 1 should re’ly have a chance, my lord, if I was to 
put up for the ’Ouse of Commons?” 

“ More than a chance,” said my lord; “ something very like a cer- 
tainty.” 

“Then,” said Kimberley,' with something like the feeling a sui- 
cide has when he pulls the fatal trigger, “I’ll do it.” 


CHAPTER XI. 

At the westward corner of the Strand end of Catherine Street 
there used, not many years ago, to be a place of public resort much 
frequented by journalists and actors. It had a horseshoe-shaped 
marble-topped counter, about which men with ponderous voices and 
mournful faces would gather of an afternoon to drink and lounge 
and exchange the news of the hour. Day after day you might have 
found the same people there, all clean shaven, all somber (except for 
the transient gleam of mirth which would rise and die at the latest 
of that vast inedited edition of conies drolatiques, to the creation and 
dissemination of which actors devote so large a share of their leisure 
moments), all faultlessly respectable in aspect, and all ponderously 
amicable one with another. At times a seedy man would enter, and 
would glance around with uncertain eye, as if in search of a familiar 
face. Sometimes the seedy man would be heavy-browed and large ' 
of frame, and sometimes he would be small of figure and would 
have a quaintly twisted face; but his features had always a curi- 
ously elastic look and a peculiar pallor, and always one of the trim , 
and respectable figures at the horseshoe counter would hail him as 
‘ ‘ dear bo}', ’ ’ and would pay for drinks for him. Sometimes on the 
seedy man’s entrance, one of the sad-faced clean-shaven men would 
move from man to man the whole length of the marble horseshoe, ■ 
with a deep murmur inaudible to the rest in each man’s ear, and 
would then pass through the swinging doors and gaze calmly on 
the Strand. Then, in a while, somebody would come out and 
speak to him, and from one hand to another would pass a couple of ' 
half-crowns, and the lounger would slip them into his pocket and 
go on staring placidly at the Strand. Then another and another and 
another would come out and go through the same benevolent pro- 
ceeding, and when the tale was fully counted the lounger would re- 
enter and fall into casual converse with the seedy man, finally lead- 
ing him away in a perfectly accidental manner to empty the little 
gathered pile of silver upon' him in a corner remote from traffic. It 


86 ‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

was not alwa 5 ’^s that this would happen; but it was pleasant to ob- 
serve that the seedy man never went empty away. The recognition 
of the bonds of brotherhood might be confined to the limits of four 
of Irish cold, or expanded to a general subscription; but the seedy 
man need only catch an eye he knew to be sure of some sort of wel- 
come. This was not the least pleasant of the manners of that van- 
ished resort. It was no more likely than the resort itself to be im- 
mortal. 

The afternoon was hot, and the Strand was like a furnace, but 
one man in the crowd which panted and perspired along its flags 
was buttoned to the chin. He was tall and broad of person, and he 
walked with an air of consequence, which set off his close-buttoned 
shabbiness to great disadvantage. His silk hat well watered, and 
brushed until it had taken an oily gleam, was creased at the side and 
flaccid at the brim ; his frock coat was threadbare and greasy, and 
he wore an extremely ancient and rusty pair of gloves— an indiscre- 
tion which emphasized his general seediness until all who ran might 
read. He had very mobile eyebrows, ink-black and heavy, and 
whilst every other feature of his face was at rest, these, in obedience 
to the workings of his mind, wandered up and down his forehead. 
His chin, upper lip, and throat were all of a bluish purple; his nose, 
which was well formed but fleshy, was of a decided pink; and the 
rest of his face wore an unhealthy and uniform pallor. At the 
westward corner of Catherine Street he paused, slapped his pockets 
with a mournful air, and looked about him. Then he laid an irreso- 
lute hand upon the door, and his pale face blushed until his cheeks 
equaled the glow of his nose. 

“ Five at home,” he murmured, “ and another coming, and the 
ghost hasn’t walked for ten weeks. 1 am sworn brother to grim 
necessity.” He pushed open the door and entering looked about 
him. A friendly hand clapped him on the shoulder. 

“ Joe, me boy,” said Mr. O’Hanlon, “ I’ve been lookin’ for ye. 
What’ll ye take? The wine o’ the country? Cold or neat? Two 

f lasses of Irish and a smile, me darlin’. I’ve news for ye, Joe, that 
think’ll turn out well. Good health, me boy.” 

“ What is it?” asked the shabby man, standing with the tumbler 
in his hand and holding it half way to hte lips as he waited for an 
answer. 

“ 1 dropped in at Cogers’ Hall last night,” said O’Haulon, “ just 
for the joke o’ the thing, to hear O’Byrne open a discussion on the 
feasibility of Home Rule, as a bit of practical politics, and I sat me 
down be the side of a toyny little creachur that was dressed and 
jeweled to death’s door. Don’t Ijold your whisky in that aggravatin’ 
way. ’ ’ The shabby man emptied his glass and set it down. ‘ ‘ That’s 
betther. Well, I got into talk with the little thing — he was shyer 
than a gyurl— an’ he blushed when 1 spoke to ’m ; an’ what d’ye 
think he turned out to be? Nothing less than a millionaire. 1 wrote 
a leader about him when he came in for his money, an’ directly he 
gave me his kyard 1 knew ’m. Bolsover Kimberley’s his name. 
And now what the divil has this got to do with you? Well, I’ll tell 
ye. He’s going in for parliament, and he wants a master in elocu- 
tion, and 1 promised to recommend him to me friend Mr. Lochleven 


“THE WAY OP THE WORLD.” 


87 

Cameron. So there 5 "’are, Joe; an’ all ye have to do is to walk up 
to the Langham, wlfere he’s staying now, and ye’ll have the job.” 

Mr. Lochleven Cameron threw his hands abroad and took a down- 
ward look at his own figure. 

” Bedad, ye’re riijht,” said O’Hanlon ruefully, ” but is them the 
only togs ye have?” 

” Little bits of pasteboard,” replied Mr. Lochleven Cameron. 
” Thirt 3 "-seven. Nothing else.” 

” Ah!” said the other, “ ye can’t walk about in a suit of pawn- 
tickets. Wait a minute. There’s Bassett, and Holt, and a crowd o’ 
fellows here. Monday’s always a poverty-stricken day with me, 
because 1 don’t draw me screw till Saturday.” 

Pausing only to set another glass of whisky before his friend, Mr. 
O’ Hanlon crossed the bar and buttonholed the great tragedian. 

” Come here, Mont, me boy. Ye’re not only rollin’ in wealth, but 
ye have the best heart of any one man in fifty, and 1 want help fora 
poor divil that’s a friend of mine. It’s Cameron, yonder. He’s out 
of a berth this three months, and I’ve found a fine thing for him — 
private lessons in elocution to a vulgar little ignoramus that’s just 
come in for two millions of money, and’s going to stand for porlia- 
ment. Joe hasn’t the togs to go to the Langham in. Just make a 
walk round, Bassett, do.” 

“ Not 1, dear boy,” said Mr. Bassett, in his magnificent deep voice. 
“ But if the humble fiver is of service — ” 

” God bless ye, Mont,” cried the kind-hearted Celt, his eyes flash- 
ing with sudden moisture behind his twinkling glasses. “ It’sa loan, 
mind. Cameron’ll pay back in a week or two.” 

” As he will,” says Mr. Bassett, seeming to relish the rich tone of 
his own voice more than common. ” As he will, or as the destinies 
decree.” He threw out his chest, as he produced a well-lined 
pocket-book and selected a note from the crisp little roll it held. 
” There you are, dear boy.” Mr. Bassett did not hide his light un- 
der a bushel, but allowed it to shine before men. His right hand 
knew of his left hand’s benefactions. 

” God bless ye, me boy,” cried O’ Hanlon again. The great trage- 
dian shook hands in disclaiming thanks. 

” A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind,” he said. “ I have 
seen hard times myself, dear boy, and 1 have not forgotten them.” 
In Fancy’s ear he heard the story told, and the listeners said, ” A 
good sort, Bassett. Greatness has not spoiled him.” He had his 
money’s worth already. 

Two hours later or thereabouts, the hall porter at the Langham be- 
held a massive man in glossy black and white, who shone all over, 
with hat, coat, gloves, boots, linen, all glossy new. The massive 
man had a pink nose, a blue skin, and inky eyebrows, and he spoke 
in a husky mellow murmur wdien he presented his card and asked 
for Mr. Bolsover Kimberley. Mr. Lochleven Cameron’s garments 
betrayed no trace of their late confinement, having been passed be- 
neath the tailor’s smoothing iron since their release ; and it was diffi- 
cult to believe that Mr. Lochleven Cameron had ever known the 
pinch of poverty — he bore himself so majestically'. He walked to 
and fro in the hall, making an occasional pass at an imaginary op- 
ponent with his walking cane, and hummed a snatch of song whilst 


88 '‘THE AVAY OF THE WOKLD.” 

he waited for the result of the porter’s inquiries. Had any observer 
been present, he must have known at a glance that Mr. Cameron 
was accustomed to lodge at the hotels favored b}'^ the wealthy classes, 
and that millionaires amongst his every-day acquaintance were as 
plentiful as blackberries. When the porter returned and put him 
under the guidance of the waiter, who looked like a clergyman of 
the Established Church disguised, he still hummed his gay air and 
swung his cane, as he followed, unembarrassed; and when the waiter 
threw open the door of a gorgeously furnished room, and the little 
millionaire advanced to meet him, he flourished off his hat with 
amazing condescension and politeness. 

“ Mr. Cameron?” said Bolsover, blushing all over. 

“ Mr. Lochleven Cameron, at your service, sir,” replied the massive 
man with a new flourish. He laid his hat upon a table as only au 
actor can, and, accepting the fire-grate as the footlights, crossed 
right, and holding his stick across his chest with both hands, faced 
Kimberley anew. “ My friend, Mr. O’Hanlon,” he pursued, “ was 
good enough to tell me that he had mentioned my name to you last 
evening. ’ ’ 

“Yes,” said Bolsover; “I want lessons in public speaking.” 
Mr. Lochleven Cameron bowed, and describing an airy circle with 
his cane, stuck one end of it upon the floor and sat upon the other. 
“ The Earl of Windgall,” continued Kimberley, “ has persuaded me 
to stand for parleyment tor my native town of Gallowbay; but I’ve 
’ad very little practice in public speaking — scarcely any, Mr. Came- 
ron — and 1 must take some lessons.” 

“ Precisely,” said Mr. Lochleven Cameron, taking the stage by a 
step to the left. “ The art of natural, easy, unembarrassed speech 
in public can scarcely be too highly valued in a public man. There 
is nothing more essential. ” 

“ That’s where it is,” returned Kimberley. “You know, Mr. 
Lochleven — 1 beg your pardon — Mr Cameron — 1 came into my 
money late in life— quite recent, so to speak — andl ’aven’t ’ad many 
advantages. ’ ’ 

“ I understand you, sir,” said the elocutionist, magnificently. 
“You desire now to atone for the defects of early education. ’ ’ There 
was a suspicion of Dublin in Mr. Lochleven Cameron’s majestic tones. 
“ My system is, 1 believe, infallible. In the course of a long experience 
1 have never kuown it to fail. My terms, however, are somewhat 
heavy. The multitude of my engagements makes that necessary. ” 

“ Oh yes, of course,” said Kimberley; “ I should like to get as 
many lessons as you can find time to give me.” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Lochleven Cameron, thoughtfully. “Let me 
see.” He ran his eyebrows up into his hair, and then dropped them 
suddenly. “ The progress made depends as much upon the aptitude 
of the pupil as the ability of the professor. Would you prefer, sir^ 
to take a daily lesson?” 

“ 1 think so,” said Kimberley. “ A lesson a day? Oh yes, cer- 
tainly.” 

“ My terms for a daily lesson of one hour’s duration.” said Mr. 
Lochleven Cameron, “ vmuld be one guinea only. Icanajfford some 
reduction from my ordinary terms when the course is pursued with 
regularity and celerit}-.” 


89 


WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

“Yes,” said Kimberley. He thought it a little dear, but the thing 
was obviousl}’- essential. “ Can you begin now?” 

“ It will be an economy of time to me,” said the tutor, “ to give a 
lesson at this visit.” He threw his cane across his chest again and 
grasped an end tightly in each hand. “ Would you like to include 
platform deportment also, sir?” he asked. “ Platform deportment 
is an extra. ’ ’ 

Yes, Kimberley would like to study platform deportment also, and 
agreed to pay an extra half guinea per lesson for tuition in that nec- 
essary art. 

“ We will begin at the beginning, if you please,” said Mr. Loch- 
leven Cameron. It had never occurred to him to study the question 
of platform deportment until now, but he entered with great spirit 
and fluency upon a practical exposition of its principles. “Much 
depends upon first impressions. There is more, believe me, sir, than 
is generally supposed in the value which may be attached to the 
manner in which a candidate first approaches his constituents in 
public. There is a style of entering upon a platform which may 
give offense. There is, on the other hand, a style which may at once 
enlist the public sympathy. Permit me.” He arranged a chair at 
the table. “ Imagine this, if you please, to be a crow^ded hall, and 
yourself about to address the audience. You are at present at the 
head of the stairs and concealed from the eyes of the assembly. 
Pray, sir, approach the table and take your seat.” 

It is not an overwhelmingly difficult thing, on the face of it, to 
approach a table and to take a seat with but a single onlooker, l3ut 
Kimberley felt that he had never embarked upon so desperate an en- 
terprise in the whole course of his life. His legs were in the way, his 
arms were in the way. He hung his head, and sidled to the chair, 
and, when he reached it, slipped into it with the manner of one who 
has a rent in his garments and would fain conceal it. 

‘‘No, no, sir,” said the tutor, in a voice of reproof. “ No, no, 
sir. Permit me. ’ ’ He placed a chair on the side of the table facing 
Kimberley, and with his hat in one hand and his cane in the other, 
he retired to the far end of the room. There he stuck his cane un- 
der his left arm and took his hat by the brim, holding it crown up- 
ward between thumb and finger, and having arranged his hair with 
a, few light and graceful touches, set his right hand in the breast of 
his glossy broadcloth coat, and advanced with smiling majesty to the 
table. There, delicately bestowing his hat and cane before him, he 
bowed right, left and center, and sank into his seat, drawing it grad- 
ually toward him with his left hand, and finally suffering the left 
arm to fall negligently over the chair-back. “ That is the sort of 
thing, sir. Try that,* if you please.” 

Kimberley arose to try it, and Mr. Lochleven Cameron laid hands 
upon him like a drill sergeant with a new recruit, and pulled, 
pushed, and coaxed him into something like the preliminary attitude 
he desired. Poor Kimberley, with his chin stuck into what he felt 
to be an attitude of absurd self-importance, his stick under his arm, 
his hat, crown upward, between finger and thumb, and his right 
hand thrust into the bosom of his waistcoat, felt like a statue of 
■misery. 

“ Now, sir, advance,” cried the tutor; and Kimberley set forward 


90 ^‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD,” 

automatically and marched to the table, half ready to die with shame. 
“ Better, much better,” said the actor, as he watched him with crit- 
ical eye. ” Much better; but remember the facial expression, my 
dear sir, remember the facial expression. A leetle more cheerful, if 
you can. But all that is very much a matter of use and custom. 
You must get your stage legs, to begin with. We will try again, if 
you please.” 

Kimberley had set himself in attitude anew, and Mr. Lochleven 
Cameron was patting and modeling him ; retiring at moments to sur- 
vey him with his head on one side, and then advancing to push him\ 
into some new attitude whch felt more awkward than the last, when 
a knock sounded at the door, and the clerical-looking waiter entered 
with a card upon a salver. 

“ Show the gentleman up, please,” said Kimberley in a tone of 
resignation, after glancing at it. ” This is a gentleman,” he said, 
when the waiter had retired, “ who has done some literary work for 
me already, Mr. Amelia. He’s going to ’elp me to get up my 
speeches.” 

” I have not yet the pleasure of Mr. Amelia’s acquaintance,” said 
the tragedian, in his deep vibratory voice; ” but I shall be pleased 
to meet him.” 

Mr. Amelia entered and shook hands with Kimberley, and he and 
Mr. Lochleven Cameron bowed at each other; the one with a quick 
bob, and the other with an elaborated and stagey slowness. 

‘‘ Who’s got hold of him now?” said Mr. Amelia to himself, re- 
garding the stranger keenly. ” Looks like an actor.” 

Kimberley was like the Bishop in the Robin Hood ballad — 

A Bishop he was a baron of beef 
To cut and come again— 

but all the same, Mr. Amelia was natively disposed to look with jeal- 
ous eye upon any man who stuck his fork into the joint and took 
his slice from it. 

Kimberley pulled at his limp whisker and sleeked his meek up- 
standing hair whilst he explained Mr. Cameron’s function to Mr. 
Amelia and Mr. Amelia’s to Mr. Cameron. 

” Mr. Amelia,” he said, “is so good as to ’elp me to prepare my 
speeches, Mr. Cameron; and Mr. Cameron is givin’ me lessons in 
public speaking, Mr. Amelia.” 

Mr. Amelia drew a roll of manuscript from his breast pocket, and 
laid it upon the table. 

“ This is the result of our conversation of yesterday,” he said, in 
his open, crisp way. “ 1 don’t think 1 have ruined any of the points 
you mentioned.” 

“ V\ ould you mind reading it out, if you please?” asked Kimber- 
ley. “ Because then Mr. Cameron and me could listen both together, 
and we should know what I’ve got to learn.” Mr. Amelia nodded, 
and began to straighten out the roll of paper. “ Would you take a 
glass of wine the while, gentlemen?” He rang the bell and ordered 
a bottle of champagne (whenever he wanted to be hospitable he 
thought of champagne; though for his own part he could discern no 
charm in that beverage, and would sooner have drunk ginger-beer), 
and the wine being brought, he produced a box of cigars and laid it 


91 


‘‘the way of the world.” 

on the table. He was beginning to enjoy a cigar by this time, and 
had some discrimination in the matter of tobaccos. The waiter un- 
corked the bottle, and frothed out three glasses of its contents, Mr. 
Lochleven Cameron and Kimberley each lit a big cigar, and Mr. 
Amelia resting himself, with one little leg cocked over the other and 
his pert hair starting straight up with self-importance in every fiber 
of it, began to read. 

“ My Lord and Gentlemen, — In appearing for the first time be- 
fore you as a candidate for parliamentary honors, 1 feel myself 
bound to declare that 1 do not approach you in that capacit}- — and 
never should have approached you in that capacity— -of my own 
initiative. 1 did not feel, however, that 1 should be justified in dis- 
regarding the friendly pressure which has been brought to bear 
upon me.” ^ 

Mr. Amelia’s voice was what it always had been since Kimberley 
had first heard it, crisp, hard, loud, and self possessed to the borders 
of vain-glory. The unhappy little candidate for parliamentary 
honors felt that — in Mr. Amelia’s tone at least — this protestation of 
unwillingness sounded hollow and unreal. 

“ They won’t believe it,” he groaned inwardly. Mr. Amelia pro- 
ceeded. 

‘‘ Your lordship can bear me witness when 1 say that I only con- 
sented to become a candidate for the representation of my native 
borough with extreme reluctance.” 

“I’m afraid you must cut that out,” said Kimberley. “ 1 was 
reluctant. I was indeed. But I’m afraid Lord Windgall didn’t 
think so.” Mr. Amelia took up a pen from a standish on the table 
and struck out the sentence. It was not very easy for anything to 
increase the contempt he had learned to feel for Mr. Kimberley, but 
everything the millionaire said and did only served to confirm it, 

‘‘ Friendly pressure,” he read again, ” which as been brought to 
bear upon me. 1 am fully conscious of my own demerits, and am 
not at all disposed to vaunt myself as an ideal candidate.” 

” Oh, dear me,” the candidate objected inwardly; “ it sounds 
like bragging.” Coupled with Mr. Amelia’s voice and Mr. Amelia’s 
manner, it certainly had no air of superfluous humility. 

” 1 have not one word,” pursued Mr. Amelia, ” to say against the 
rival candidate; and I shall attempt to win this contest by no appeal 
to party passion op the rancor of political spite.” 

“Hear, hear!” said Mr. Lochleven Cameron, “Well turned; 
very well turned indeed!” 

“ 1 have the higliest personal respect for Major Septimus Heard.” 
Mr. Amelia did not share in that sentiment, and perhaps his voice 
expressed something of his private opinion.^ Kimberley, in his own 
uneasy shyness, was identifying himself with this speech and with 
the manner of its utterance. If he could have disassociated the 
matter and the manner he would have been better satisfied; but he 
was himself and Mr. Amelia and a nervously sensitive audience all at 
once, and his uneasiness was compound. “ And,” Mr. Amelia pur- 
sued, “ I shall endeavor in the course of this contest to make that 
respect manifest. For myself, however inadequate my ix)wers may 
be, I can assure you that in the public service of this borough my 
heart and goodwill shall never be wanting.” The reader’s aggres- 


92 ‘^THE WAY OF THE -WORLD.’’ 

sive tone cut Kimberley like a knife. It was actually Himself who, 
under this thin disguise of verbal humility, was o])enly proclaiming 
at least an equality with everybody. “I was born amongst you, 
and brought up amongst you, and I may fairly claim to know your 
wishes and your needs better than a stranger can ever know them. 
All my interests are associated with your own ; and if 1 were ani- 
mated by the most purely selfish spirit 1 could desire nothing more 
earnestly than that Gallo wbay should prosper. My personal interests 
and the interests of the borough are identical.” 

“ Admirable!” said Mr. Lochleven Cameron. “1 should pause 
for cheers after each one of those four last sentences.” That also 
seemed cold-blooded to poor Kimberley, and with all the tenor he 
had endured in looking forward to the ordeal which awaited him, 
he had never had so little stomach for it as he hadfjow. He began 
to think that if he had left himself to his own devices he would 
have fared better. Even iJChe had broken down he would have 
missed all these painful mechanics. But then he thought of his 
shaky grammar and his eccentric h’s, and his poor upbreeding and 
his native shyness, and everything, seemed to grow mountainous as 
he contemplated it, and he to shrink and dwindle into a mere atom 
full of terrors and reluctance. Mr. Amelia went on reading, and 
Kimberley could not make head or tail of the remainder of the speech, 
but sat in dumb anguish asking himself why, oh wliy, he had ever 
consented to bear this dreadful unnecessary burden. The exercise 
lasted twenty minutes, and seemed to have lasted a year. At its 
close Mr. Lochleven beat upon the table with his walking-cane and 
cried ” Hear, hear!” and Mr. Amelia, as he laid down his manu- 
script, allowed a faint reflex of bis own satisfaction with his own 
performance to appear in his face. It was an odd thing, and yet 
perhaps it was natural, that Mr. Amelia should have been reading 
at his fellow servant rather than his employer all this time, and that 
he valued Mr. Cameron’s applause more than he would have ap- 
preciated Kimberley’s, though the one was worth nothing and the 
other meant money for him. 

Kimberley was too shy to dismiss his visitors, unhappy as he felt, 
in their presence, and too timid to run away from them. So they 
sat and talked above their wine and cigars, and had a good time of 
it, whilst the host suffered. 

” Shall we continue our lesson?” asked Mr. Lochleven Cameron, 
M'^hen the bottle was empty. 

“Hot this afternoon, I think, ” replied Kimberley, “ At what 
time can you come to-morrow?” 

Mr. Cameron, whose heart was opened by O’Hanlon’s whisky and 
Kimberley’s champagne, was about to say that he was free to attend 
upon his patron at what hour he would, but luckily remembered his 
former protestations just in time, and assuming an aspect of pro- 
found reflection, made abstruse reckonings on his fingers for a 
cninute, and stated that he was disengaged either from nine to ten 
In the morning or from three to four in the afternoon. Kimberley 
engaged him thereupon for one hour each afternoon, and dismissed 
aim with his honorarium. Mr. Amelia, having received his dues 
also, went away with the actor, and the millionaire sat down lonely 


‘‘the way of the world.’’ 93 

in his big and gorgeously- furnished chamber, and stared at the un- 
inviting future. 

No man’s good nature is quite as complete when he is in pain or 
distress as when he is at peace, and Kimberley’s troubles seemed to 
untune him for the moment altogether. He found himself in a furi- 
ously suspicious mood by-and-by. He was ignorant of the world, 
and he was slow to think evil, but he began to wonder whether or 
not he was in the toils of a conspiracy. Why did Windgall want to 
push him into parliament? Was Blandy right, and was the social, 
position he was about to take a necessary preliminary to the matri- 
monial scheme? And Alice, who seem^ so gay, so innocent and 
bright, had she read his fable when he told it to her, and had her 
advice been mercenary? Any one of these fancies was bitter, but 
they were nothing to the fear that Ella also might know the base 
readiness of father and sister 1o catch an ex-clerk for the sake of his 
money, and might look forward to h^* own fate with equanimity. 
This was altogether unreasonable in a man who was in love and who 
wanted to secure the lady; but then he wanted to be loved himself 
and not quietly stalked for his money-bags. He wanted to make a 
woman happy, and to find his own happiness there ; and if he had 
been greater of heart he would have seen its impossibility no clearer, 
but he would at least have torn himself away from a temptation, 
which had so little to ofter him. Love him? Why should she love 
him ? He looked at himself in the fflass, and could have wept for 
mortification. Why should Windgall befriend him? Who would 
care for him? Who had ever cared for him? Nobody would look 
at him but for his money, and the fortune which had fallen upon 
him had brought him nothing but sorrow and humiliation. He was 
happier — oh, a thousand times happier without it. 

Suddenly, like a spoken reproach, the memory of the moonlight 
on the lawn, and the nightingale singing in the wood, came to him, 
and touched him with a sense of keen ingratitude. She had been 
happy then, if but for a little while, and if his money had brought 
him no more than that, it was something to be grateful for. 

“ The truth is,” he said mournfully, ” money’s spoiling me. Not 
as I ever was much, but I hadn’t used to be as bad as this. 1 ought 
to be more ’umble and more thankful. What his lordship said the 
first day 1 ever spoke to him was right. ‘ Wealth has its duties as 
well as its privileges, ’ he said, and he’s helping me to do them, and 
1 can think nothing better of a nobleman as takes that trouble with 
me than fancy he wants my money. I ought to be ’artily ashamed 
of myself.” 

He felt it, perhaps without great reason, but he was happier in 
thinking poorly of himself than in thinking meanly of other people. 


CHAPTER XII. 

The human animal is so constructed that he can become ac- 
customed to the strangest ways of living, and in a little while Kim- 
berley began to find the lessons in platform deportment tolerable. 
He committed the speech Mr. Amelia had written to memory, and 
spent many hours in pounding at it in the presence of Mr. Loch- 


94 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 




leven Cameron. At first it was very dreadful to have to stand there 
with an audience of one, and to behave as if he were in the presence 
of a crowd, to smite the table to order, and to wave his hands in 
obedience to instruction; but in a while he got used to his tutor and 
suffered but little. In a week or two ambition so far mastered in- 
clination, that he began to occupy a morning as well as an afternoon 
hour with Mr. Lochleven Cameron, the earlier lesson being devoted 
to an earnest grappling with that dreadful h. Now that Kimberley 
was enlightened, he listened to the speech of all men with an ear for 
the one defect or virtue they mrght have in this regard, and he went 
about repeating to himself, “ up a high hill he heaved a huge hard 
stone,” or “ the horn of the hunter is lieard on the hill,” or “ he eyed 
high heaven with a haughty air ” — the last being a terrific twister and 
full of pitfalls. At first he mixed things dreadfully, and his h’s got 
into apparently impossible places, but in the course of time he tri- 
umphed, and when Windgall came up to town on business, and 
called upon him, he was surprised at the little man’s advancement. 
Kimberley had possessed himself of a book on vulgar errors, in 
English, and had discovered to his horror that his speech was very 
largely made up of the expressions this valuable little work de- 
nounced; and, now despairing and now hoping, he had slaved away 
at its pages Until he had nearly mastered them. 

All the while it was love that lent him patience and spurred his 
courage and awakened his discernment. He began to see that in 
this one matter of speech lay perhaps the chief outer distinction be- 
tween the gentleman and the snob, and he determined to abolish that 
difference in his own case, or to die. To be able to speak in the 
beautiful Ella’s presence, without reminding her in every sentence 
of the lowness of his origin, was surely to remove one of the barrier’s 
which lay between him and any possibility of her esteem. If he 
could only be a gentleman after all! It "was something to know that 
the visionary family tradition of the commodore had come into the 
region of verified fact, and that Kimberley therefore had good blood 
in his veins — for the commodore was a scion of a great house — and 
it was something to be really entitled to use the crest and motto 
which adorned his note-paper, and were carved upon his signet- 
ring. He broke his heart over Corbett’s grammar, and yet he stuck 
to it. He studied political questions wfith Mr. Amelia, who was of 
genuine service to him, and posted him in all the newest crotchets, 
so that when the awful time of the election actually came, he should 
know what to say to inquiring voters. He wrestled with the slip- 
pery and illusive aspirate, and he read the work on vulgar errors 
witli such devotion as few readers have given to its pages. 

Windgall’s information turned out to be correct, and that autumn 
the Government made its appeal to the constituencies. The country 
got into its usual ferment, and the amiable, and for the most part, 
high-minded gentlemen who in turn control the destinies of this 
kingdom received their ordinary meed of frantic adulation and un- 
reasonable blame. As usual, the country was going to ruin headlong, 
and whilst millions were convinced that it could only le saved by a 
movement in one direction, other millions were passionately per- 
suaded that it could only be plucked from immediate perdition by a 
march in a diametrically opposite direction. So the game of pull 


"'THE WAY OP THE WORLD.” 95 

devil pull baker began— each side believing itself to be the baker and 
the other to be the universal enemy— which, when one comes to 
think of it, is a condition of aifairs not altogether empt}’’ of humor, 
Kimberley went out for the salvation of his country as gallantly as 
the rest, and took up his headquarters at Shouldershott Castle once 
more. The walls of Gallowbay were plastered with his name in 
flaming red letters, “Vote for Kimberley, the People’s Friend,” 
“Kimberley and the Constitution,” “Kimberley for Gallowbay.” 
He cowered piteously at first when he saw these things, and when 
tho mob came out to cheer him and hoot at him as he drove with 
Windgall to the central committee-room, he blushed and turned pale 
with such rapid alternation that his noble friend began to feel afraid 
for him. 

My lord did almost everything that could be done for him by an- 
other. He ■was Kimberley’s spokesman in all little emergencies 
at the meetings of the committee, he took the chair for him at his 
principal meetings, and was indefatigable in his services, Mr. 
Amelia was living at free quarters at the “ Windgall Arms,” mak- 
ing constant notes for Kimberley’s speeches, and issuing biting 
squibs against Major Septimus Heard — an occupation which natu- 
rally afforded a refined delight. 

The Honorable Jack Clare must needs enlist himself as the Liberal 
candidate’s lieutenant, and it was his unlucky interference which 
imparted bitterness into the Gallowbay contest. The young man 
had persuaded himself that if ever there had been amongst the mer- 
cenary scoundrels of the earth one qualified to be king and captain 
of the crew, that man was the Earl of Windgall. That this was a 
somewhat harsh opinion on an embarrassed nobleman who wanted 
one of his daughters to marry a millionaire, will be generally admit- 
ted, but Clare clung to it as if it had been a gospel. He had never 
seen Kimberley, but he hated him with singular honesty. Major 
Heard was his friend, and it was not difficult for the young man to 
bring himself to the belief that nothing but friendship and political 
conviction made him so ardent a partisan in this conflict. Lord 
Montacute was horrified at Jack’s defection from the family line of 
politics, and actually came down on a visit to Gallowbay and deliv- 
ered one or two speeches in support of Kimberley’s candidature. 
But the younger man made cleverer speeches than his brother, and 
Montacute’s interference only made him more important and more 
popular. A young sw^ell slanging the institutions of swelldom, and 
casting in his lot with the vulgar, is pretty sure of a following, and 
the roughs at least were with the Honorable Jack to a man. Jack 
was very severe on the Liberal -Conservative candidate and his nobje 
bear-leader. He was very scornful and uncivil about the “ triple 
alliance,” as he called it, “ of the lawyer’s clerk, the penny-a liner, 
and the noble lord— a masterly combination which secured money, 
venom, and prestige.” Mr. Amelia certainly found venom enough 
to justify Clare’s illusion, and the feeble editor of the “ Gallowbay 
Banner ” was deposed from the political chair during the contest, in 
order that the clever little man might write the election articles. 
Clare never guessed as much, but people knew pretty well the ground 
of his obvious dislike for my Lord Windgall, and to outsiders I he 
j>ersonaI interest gave a sense of piquancy, lie thoughi the story of 


96 


‘•THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

his old courtship of Lady Ella Santerre a secret shared only by half- 
a-dozen people, but the whole world knew of it, and the girl’s father 
was aware of that latter fact, and had his own private shames about 
Kimberley, These made him like Clare none the better, and an 
enmity which bade fair to be lifelong began to spring up between 
them. 

All this brought great pain to Ella’s heart, which had been sore 
enough already. She could not justify her lover, and she knew 
nothing of the general suspicions about her father’s intriguings to 
secure Kimberley, Once, in driving through Gallowbay with her 
lather and Alice, she saw Jack in the street, walking arm in arm with 
Major Heard. He raised his hat, but Windgall took no note of the 
salute. Ella bowed in answer to it, but she saw a look of wrath and 
accusation in the young man’s face which was almost as hard to 
bear as it was difficult to understand. The earl looked at her and 
saw her turn pale at the sight of her old lover, but he allowed the 
incident to pass in silence. 

On this walk, which he pursued after he had parted with the major, 
Jack encountered no less a person than Mr. Lochleven Cameron, and 
was passing him by without recognition, when the actor advanced 
and claimed him. 

“ Captain Clare?” said he, flourishing his hat and startling the 
gloomy, meditative lover. “1 think 1 am not mistaken. 1 have the 
honor of addressing Captain Clare?” 

“Yes,” said Jack, recovering himself . “ Mr. Cameron, I think?” 

“ The same,” said Mr. Cameron, with a certain massive playful- 
ness. Mr. Cameron’s nose was a little more pink than common that 
afternoon. “I had the honor of dining with you ” — he called it 
doyning, for he was off his customary guard — “ at the Cannibal 
Club in London last autumn,” 

“ I remember perfectly,” said Jack. “ Are you playing here?” 

“ In a sense, I am,” said Mr, Cameron. “ I take a subordinate 
part in the farce of ‘ The General Election. ” 

“Oh!” cried Jack. “ In Gallowbay?” 

“ In Gallowbay,” says Mr. Cameron, with a slow wink. “ I am 
training the little millionaire in elocution, sir, and though I say it 
who should not, I have a confoundedly unpromising pupil. It 
goes to me heart,” he pursued, with a sudden change from an air of 
persiflage to one of deep emotion, “ to see how he disgreeces me tu- 
ition, ’ ’ 

“ Don’t tell tales out of school, Mr. Cameron,” said Jack, lightly, 
beginning to perceive his companion’s condition. 

“ Oi?” inquired the actor with surprise. “ I am as close as seal- 
ing-wax. But I could a tale unfold which would make the fortune 
of a comic writer. That reminds me. Have you seen Sylvester 
down here?” 

“ I know no one of that name, Mr. Cameron,” said Jack, extend- 
ing his hand to say farewell. 

“ I beg your pardon. Captain Clare,” said Mr. Cameron with im- 
necessaiy gravity and dignity. Then playfully, “ Ye know him as 
well as ye know me. Sylvester, the comic artist, that sang the par- 
ody on ‘ The Low-backed Car ’ at the Cannibals.” 


97 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

“ 1 remember,” said Jack, with a new interest. The mention of 
the name pleased him fora reason of his own. “ Is lie staying here?” 

“ lie is at the Prince Regent Hotel, on the Marina. He is taking 
a little sniff for health’s sake at the briny,” said Mr. Cameron, hold- 
ing on to Jack’s extended hand. ‘‘ There is no dearer or finer fel- 
low in the world.” 

” A. charming fellow,” said Jack, shaking the actor’s hand, as a 
hint for the release of his own. ” 1 must go now, Mr. Cameron. 
Good afternoon.” Mr. Cameron saluted him with much empresse- 
ment, and stood for half a minute after Jack had left him with his 
feet drawn together heel to heel, and his hat in the air. Jack made 
a detour and reached the hotel the actor had mentioned. Mr. Syl- 
vester leaned against a column outside the building gazing at the 
sea. and picking his teeth with an air of idle enjoyment. He recog- 
nized ihe Honorable Captain Clare instantly, and fired a funny Irish 
story at him at once. Among the other wrongs the Sister Island en- 
dures is this, that her sons minister to the amusement of the hated 
Saxon. In the rank and file of journalism — on the stage — in the 
province of pictorial art — how thick the victims muster. They are 
not unhappy in this ministration, but surely Erin mourns above 
them. The wicked Saxon gold bribes them to the service of an 
alien race, and really they seem to be fairly pleased with that cruel 
circumstance, though they are for the most part intensely patriotic. 

” Are you resting altogether,” asked Jack, ” or would you accept 
a commission for a drawing?” 

” 1 don’t mind a day’s work,” said the artist, placidly. ” Come 
inside and have a whisky-and-soda and a talk about it.” Jack ac- 
cepted this invitation, and they entered the hotel together. ” What 
is it?” 

” I want to have a slap at that Conservative lot,” Jack declared, 
gloomily. 

” Any idea^” asked the artist, lighting a cigar from Jack’s case. 

” 1 want you to find the idea,” answered Jack. ” Lord Windgall 
is bear- leader to Kimberley, the candidate, and 1 want the pair pict- 
ured.” 

“I know where I could hit my lord,” said the artist, who had 
heard the popular belief expounded, though he was ignorant of 
Jack’s interest in that theme. “ I don’t think the candidate would 
like it either.” 

“ Very well,” said Jack, ” hit him. This is a piece of secret serv- 
ice,” he added. ” Major Heard is not inclined to adopt this line of 
warfare. 1 am. You will look to me for payment.” 

“All right,” said Mr. Sylvester, cheerfull}^ “I’ll do it for a 
five-pound note and the fun of the thing. You’d better have a litho- 
graph, and then there’ll be no expense for engraving. But I must 
either see the pair or get portraits of them.” 

“ There are photographs of Windgall on sale at all the photogra- 
phers, but I’ve never seen one of the other fellow.” 

“ I’ll get to have a look at him,” said the artist “ That’ll do as 
well as fifty portraits.” 

“ You can’t draw a man’s portrait after once seeing him? said 
Jack 


4 


98 ‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

“ Can’t 1?” replied the other, “ Come to the window and point 
out anybody you know who happens to be passing.” 

“There’s Warren, the banker,” said Clare. “A well-marked 
face.” 

“Yes,” said the artist, “ he’s a good subject.” He scanned ther^ 
passer-by attentively, and then turning his back on the window,, 
drew from his pocket a sketch-book and a pencil. He drew a dozen 
slow and careful strokes, looked at them with his head aside, added 
a dozen others, and pushed the book across the table. It was a cari- 
cature, but the likeness was absolute. “I never want to look at. 
a man twice,” said Sylvester, with pardonable complacency. 
“ When could I see Kimberley?” he asked,' a moment later. 

“ At any one of his meetings,” said Clare. “1 don’t know the lit- 
tle brute, or it’s a hundred to one he’s about the town, and I could 
point him out to you.” Kimberley had no redeeming feature in 
Jack’s eyes. He knew nothing about him except that he had been 
poor, and now was wealthy, but that Windgall should have sought 
him out and angled for him was enough to make Jack hate the 
harmless man. This scoundrel of a nobleman could break an hon- 
est heart in cold blood, and be eager to bestow his daughter, with all 
her delicate breeding and her patrician instincts, on a cad with 
money. It was natural to include the nobleman and the cad in a 
common hatred. Wrath and contempt consumed him when he- 
thought of Windgall’s baseness, and his thoughts were rarely absent 
from that theme. ‘ ‘ Send me a copy of the thing when you get it 
done, will you?” he asked, rousing himself. “ I must go now.” 
He wanted to be alone, 

“ All right,” said Sylvester, cheerfully. “ I’ll make ’im sit up.” 

Jack went away, half inclined to despise himself for having set 
this particular machinery going, but he found some consolation in 
thinking of Mr. Amelia’s mosquito-like proceedings on the other 
side. In the meantime, the artist strolled out, with meditative mind, 
revolving satires. He paused beneath the windows of Mr. Kimber- 
ley’s chief committee-room. 

“ That’ll do very nicely,” he said, and throwing away the stump 
of his cigar, he entered the “ Windgall Arms ” and asked if Mr. 
Kimberley could be seen. It turned out that Mr, Kimberley and 
the Earl of Windgall were at that moment together, and Mr. 
Sylvester, having sent in his card, was admitted to their pres- 
ence. “Mr. Kimberley,” he asked, looking from one to the 
other. Kimberley nodded, and the artist looked at him genially. 
“ You will see by my card,” he said, “ that I represent an illustrat- 
ed journal. 1 should be obliged if you would favor me with a copy 
of 3^our photograph. For publication,” he. added sweetly. 

Kimberley looked at my lord, as if for guidance, and my lord took 
the card from his extended hand. 

“Mr. Sylvester of the ‘Scourge’?” said Windgall. “ We shall 
be very glad to oblige you. Eh, Kimberley?” 

“ Certainly,” said Kimberley; and a waiter was summoned and 
dispatched to a photographer for a copy of Kimberley’s portrait just 
then newly being issued for the delight of the Gallowbay public. In 
the waiter’s absence Windgall was pleased to compliment Mr. Syl- 
vester on his singularly amusing and clever sketches, and at Kim- 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 99 

l)erley’s invitation Mr, Sylvester took a drink and smoked a remark- 
ably enjoyable cigar. When he had secured the unneeded portrait, 
the artist went his way, and, behold, outside the hotel was a cor- 
oneted carriage and seated therein a young lady of great beauty, 
■whose appearance delighted even the fastidious artistic eye. 

“ Is that Lord Windgall’s daughter?” he asked one of the wait- 
ers, who lounged in the porch of the hotel. 

” Yes, sir,” said the waiter. “ That is the Lady Ella Santerre, 
sir.” 

Mr. Sylvester took a good look at her, and marched off with three 
faces in his memory instead of two only. As he walked he smiled 
with a seeming of hidden humor; and it might have been evident 
to anybody who chose to observe him that hie was greatly amused 
by his own fancies. 

“ Standing?” he said inquiringly to himself, as he looked about 
Lim. “ Standing, copperplate and lithographic printer. Where 
are you. Standing? A-ha! 1 see you!” 

He strolled into the lithographer’s front shop. 

‘ ‘ Are you a practical lithographer?” he asked the man behind the 
counter. 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ You do your work ere upon the premises?” 

“ Yes, sir,” again. 

“ Can you turn out large-sized work?” 

” Any size you like — in reason, sir.” 

“ Very well. 1 want to make a drawing on a good-sized stone, 
say for a double-crown sheet or thereabouts, and 1 want jmu to get 
two hundred to begin with as soon as you possibly can.” 

“We have a first-rate artist on the premises, sir,” said the lithog- 
Tapher. He was a modest man, and did not care to indicate him- 
self more clearly. 

“I’ll do this bit of work myself , if you please,” returned the 
artist, and the lithographer, learning that he wished to begin at 
once, led the way to the office. Here, in a little while, Mr. Sylvester 
found himself provided with all he stood in need of, and with his 
hat on one side, his cigar cocked up in one corner of his mouth, and 
his amused smile broadening and fading by turns, regarded his 
materials for a time in silence, and then set to work. The proprie- 
tor of the place watched him, and waited with some interest to see 
what was coming of this amateur effort. Every draughtsman has 
his own way of going to work, and Mr. Sylvester’s was peculiar. 
He laid down a number of detached lines all over the surface before 
him, and for the space of five minutes or so these lines seemed to 
have no meaning at all, though they were put on with a free and 
steady hand, and were as pure as anything ever yet produced by 
graver. Then, by the interpretation of later lines, it became clear 
that a line at the top of the prepared surface indicated the curved 
form of the top of a wide-awake hat, and that one at the bottom 
stood for the toe of a boot, and another half-way down for a rag on 
the skirt of a coat. The detached lines all over the surface drew to- 
gether, and there were three figures in a group already lifelike. The 
figures were those of a man, a maiden in fashionable attire, and a 
monkey. The monkey was perched on a barrel-organ, and the hand 


100 


‘•THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

of the maiden extended toward him something which had the ap- 
pearance of an oval disk. By and-hy, the litliographer, watching 
with more and more interest, saw the head of the monkey make al- 
most a leap into the precise likeness of the Liberal- Conservative can- 
didate. A while later, and the organ-man, who was already dancing 
to his own accompaniment, disclosed himself as the very counterfeit 
of the Right Honorable the Earl of Windgall. From the organ- 
man’s wrist to the monkey’s waist was passed a chain of fantastic 
pattern, which grew into legible letters, and these being finished 
spelt ‘‘Mutual Interest.” The scroll-worked front of the barrel- 
organ became also legible, and spelt “ Two Millions Sterling.” 
When this device became apparent, the lithographer began to 
chuckle and crow behind the artist, and that inventive personage 
himself being thus inspired, let off a short laugh of enjoyment at 
his own humor. 

“1 beg your pardon, sir,” said the lithographer, “but are you 
Mr. Sylvester?” 

“ That’s my name,” said the artist, turning with half a blush and 
a whole smile. “ What made you ask?” 

“1 knew your hand, sir,” returned the lithographer, in a voice 
mournful with admiration. “ I see your work in ‘ The Scourge ^ 
every week, sir. Look out for it regularly, sir. A wonderful sweet 
line you’ve got, if 3mu41 excuse me for saying so. What are you 
going to do with the lady, sir?” 

“ i’ll show you,” said the draughtsman, lighting a new cigar. 
“ Let me see if you know her.” 

The lady as yet was featureless. There was a charming little hat, 
a curl of hair or two escaped from it, and a fine line expressed the 
cheek and chin. Mr. Sylvester worked with more than common 
care upon this part of his drawing, but ver}'- soon the face of Lady 
Ella shone there, if there was somefliing of caricature in his pre- 
sentment of Windgall and his protege, the draughtsman at least 
spared the lady and did his best to give her justice. 

“Know her?” said the lithographer. “This is the best of the 
three. What’s that in her hand?” 

The aitist answered by setting to work anew, and the oval disk 
with irregular edge turned out to be a cheese-cake, in which currants 
were arranged to spell “ Social Position,” and this the lady was be- 
stowing on the monkey with an air of charming graciousness and 
condescension. 

“Capital! capital! capital!” cried the lithographer. “ The town 
will have a grin at this, and no mistake.” 

Mr. Sylvester did not model this work of art by shading, but by a 
bold thickening of the outline, and his labor being rapidly finished, 
he gave the tradesman a written order on Captain Clare for pay- 
ment, requesting that early impressions might be sent to Captain 
Clare and himself, and took his leave well pleased. 

“ I’ll tell you what,’ said Mr. Standing, as the artist was lounging 
away, “I’ll have two or three copies sent down to Shouldershott 
Castle by a safe hand 1 know, and have ’em posted on the lodge.” 

He and Mr. Sylvester both chuckled enjoyiugly at this generous 
proposal, and were neither of them very ill-natured men as a general 
thing. By old prescription everybody has a right to be disagreeable 


• "‘THE WAY OF THE WOELD.’’ 101 

at election time, and neither of them knew the pain this humorous 
effusion would create. Mr. Standing was better than his woid, and 
not only was the lodge of Shouldershott Castle decorated as he pro- 
posed, but the whole frontage of the lower story of the Windgall 
Arms was covered with Mr. Sylvester’s pictorial satire. One humor- 
ously-minded burgess, who voted on the Liberal side, and 
was as a natural consequence convinced that Kimberley’s com- 
pact with Windgall was unholy and deserving of all reproof, 
got hold of three copies and addressed them separately to the 
earl, the candidate, and the Lady Ella. It happened that Wind- 
gall himself opened the post bag that morning, and having, 
seen the placard addressed to himself, confiscated the other 
two, plainly recognizing their character, and burned them. But 
Kimberley saw the dreadful thing billed all over the town that 
day, and Ella, roaming in the park with Alice, found a copy of it 
pasted firmly to the smooth surface of a giant beech, the bark of 
which had been stripped away by lightning. The girl simply 
thought the drawing infinitely coarse and vulgar, and she failed al- 
together to see why her own presentment was included in it. Nat- 
urally enough, almost her first thought was of her lover. He was 
fighting on the other side, but he was too generous, too manly to 
countenance such a mode of warfare as this. It would have been 
almost a heartbreaking thing at the moment to have known that 
this shameless insult to herself, her father, and his guest, had been 
leveled at Jack’s instigation. 

But as when the tyro throws the boomerang and it returns from 
his unskillful hand and stuns him. Jack was the one who suffered 
most from the use of this satiric missile. He was in his own quar- 
ters at barracks when he received his copy of the placard by the 
post. He unfolded it with a grim sense of satisfaction. Sylvester 
was certain to have done something smart and clever, and he had 
promised that he knew where to hit the noble lord and Kimberley. 
But when Clare had the sheet opened out before him and grasped 
its purport, he took himself by the hair with both hands and stood 
upright for one moment frozen. Then he began to rave and rage 
about the room and to stretch out hands that itched and longed for 
Mr, Sylvester. Once free from the routine duty of the day, he lost 
not a moment on the journey' to Gallo wbay, and there, after a hur 
ried consultation with Major Heard who was almost as wounded 
and indignant as himself, he gave orders to the Liberal bill-stickers 
to go forth and obscure every one of the obnoxious placards. 

“If,” cried the major, pulling at his long mustaches, with his 
Quixote face aglow with wrath, “ if I knew the man who had insti- 
gated this I would travel fifty miles to pull his nose. By heaven, I 
would, sir.” 

“ If 1 could lay my hands upon the man who did it,” cried Jack, 
and his feeling was perfectly real, though he knew how disingen- 
uous he was, “ I’d break every bone in his skin.” 

Fortunately for all parties concerned, the humorous artist had 
found himself on the previous evening recalled to town, by reason 
of the serious illness of a colleague, and so Jack Clare and he met 
no more for a twelvemonth. 

The popular fancy was hugely tickled by the rough satire of the 


102 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


(( 


}} 


picture, and Mr. Standing kept the litho^aphic stone and worked 
off two or three hundred copies for private circulation, at prices 
varying from a sovereign to a half-crown apiece, so that he at least 
made a good thing of it. But it so imbittered the contest that the 
opposing parties got to hate each other. 

Away to heaven, respective. lenity, 

And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now, 

was the cry of partisans on either side. But rage as they might, 
the issue of the conflict was a foregone conclusion, and when the 
whole terrible ordeal of a contested election had been gone through, 
Kimberley found himself face to face with one still more dreadful 
to contemplate. He had now to confront the British House of Com- 
mons, for he was declared Member for Gallowbay by an overwhelm- 
ing majority. 


CHAPTER Xlll. 

Mr. Amelia entering at the front door of No. 158 Waverley Ter- 
race, Waverley Road, N., was aware of certain unusual sounds 
which proceeded from the front parlor, immediately over which his 
own lodging room was situated. The sounds were indicative, either 
of revelry, or of public business, conducted on a principle unusually 
warm and enthusiastic. Some twenty or thirty voices raised a 
might shout of “ Brayvo ” and “ Ear, ear,” and there was a noise of 
stamping feet, and clapping hands, and a great rattling upon tables. 
Mr. Amelia stood a moment to listen, with his latch-key in his hand, 
and when the tumult had somewhat subsided he heard his land- 
lord’s voice. 

“ Mr. Vidler, sir,” said the landlord, “your jolly good health 
and song.” 

‘‘ ’Ealth and song,” chorused the voices which had before been 
raised in applause, and a second or two later the hammering on ta- 
bles was renewed. The lodger walked upstairs in silent condem- 
nation of these noisy tokens of good fellowship, and lighting his bed- 
room candle he took himself to adding up little columns of figures 
in his pocket-book. He kept a«count of his incomings and outgo- 
ings to the uttermost farthing; and being but newly returned from 
Gallowbay, where he had made a pretty good thing of it in the serv- 
ice of Mr. Kimberley, he was now accurately estimating his total 
profits on that engagement. 

” First-class fare received both ways,” said Mr. Amelia, with his 
pencil-point at his lips, ” three pounds sixteen shillings ; third-class 
fare paid both ways, twenty-six shillings. Profits on railway ex- 
penses two pounds ten. Hotel expenses for twenty days, charged 
twenty guineas— twenty-one pounds: actual bill received and paid 
twelve pounds ten: profit on hotel expenses, eight pounds ten. 
Profit so far eleven pounds. Service, twenty-two days at a guinea 
a, day, twenty-three pounds two shillings; total to the good, thirty- 
four pounds two. 1 have done very well with Mr. Kimberley, but a 
general election does not happen every day. Confound that noise 
below. I won’t endure it.” 

He rang his bell with some violence, and at the same moment 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WOKLD.” 103 

lliere sounded a loud rat-tat-tat at the front door. More revel- 
ers presumably. Mr. Amelia would never have been very- 
willing to allow himself to be disturbed by such an uproar 
as that which arose from the merry-makers below, and it 
seemed to him unpardonable that a man who in three weeks and a 
day had cleared and saved the sum of thirty-four pounds two shil- 
lings, should be so annoyed. He would have respected in another 
man the ability to make so much money in such a time, and he felt 
that the quality should be respected in himself. Of the two sum- 
monses, that at the door was first answered, and when the landlady 
appeared, she said ; 

“ A gentleman to see you, Mr. Amelia. Did you ring, sir?” 

” I rang,” returned Mr. Amelia, “ to request you to ask the gen- 
tlemen bellow to be a little more moderate in their merriment. I can’t 
hear my own ears for the noise they’re making. Who is the gen- 
tleman who wishes to see me?” 

” The designation’s flattering,” said a voice on the landing with- 
out, ” but I am the person indicated. Can 1 come in?” 

Mr. Amelia thought he knew the voice, but was scarcely sure. 

” Come in,” he answered. “Ask them to make less noise be*- 
low.” 

“ I’ll speak to the gentlemen,” said the landlady, and returning 
from the doorway, she made room for Mr. Kyrle Maddox to enter. 

“ How are you?” asked the new-comer, extending his hand to Mr. 
Amelia, “ 1 thought I’d look you up. You’ve been to Gallow^bay 
again, haven’t you? I heard about you from Rider. 

“ I did not see you there,” said Mr. Amelia curtly. “ How do 
you do.” Mr. Maddox seated himself and produced a pipe. “I 
don’t smoke in my bedroom,” said the little man with crisp 
severity. 

“No!” said the other, with an accent of surprise. “Doesn’t 
matter. I can wait a bit. How are you g:etting on?” 

“ What are you doing in London?” asked Mr. Amelia, ignoring 
the question. 

“ I? Oh, I’m at large for a little while. My uncle died a week 
or two ago and left me a little money — not much, but more than I 
should ever earn as a reporter— so I came up here after the funeral, 
and I’m going to have a try at literature.” He blushed as he said 
this, and added, “ I’ve got a lot of rubbish, ‘ prose and worse,’ as 
Jerrold said, and I shall try to knock it into some sort of form,” 

“ You have done quite right to come to London,” said Mr. Amelia 
softening to his visitor. “You will acquire a style which is only to 
be acquired in a capital city. There is a provincial mark on all men. 
in the provinces. ’ ’ 

“Mm. Don’t know,” said the youngster, trifling with his pipe. 
“ I say, you cleared out of Gallo wbay rather suddenly. What was 
the matter?” 

“ I do not care lo talk upon that topic,” answered Mr. Amelia. 
“ A piivate communication of mine was shamelessly misused, and I 
did not think it consistent with my own self-respect to remain.” 

“ Mm,” said the youngster again. “ 1 asked Rider, of course, but 
he wouldn’t say a word about it, except that he was very sorry, and 
that it was very unfortunate.” 


104 ^^THE WAY OF THE W^OELD.’^ 

“ 1 should think it extremely probable,” said Mr, Amelia that 
Mr. Rider would think the affair unfortunate.” 

” It wasn’t Rider who abused your confidence?” said Maddox. 

It couldn’t have been Rider. ” 

“ I have nothing against Mr. Rider,” returned Mr. Amelia. “ He 
was not at all to blame.” 

“I’m glad to hear you say so,” cried the younger man. “I 
shouldn’t like to hear any harm of Rider. He’s a beautiful old fel- 
low. I’m fond of Rider. ” 

Mr. Amelia offered no response, and there was an interval of 
si’ence. Maddox was about to speak again, when there came a tap 
at the door, and the landlord entered. He was a man with a won- 
derfully smug face, with a long black wisp of whiskers on each side 
of it. The fashion had been common a year or two before, and 
whiskers thus worn were ciiiTently known as Piccadilly Weepers. 
The landlord’s naturally smug aspect w^as increased by the close- 
clinging, well-oiled, shining hair he wore; and he stood with his 
toes pointing outward — one foot a little in advance of the other, and 
the legs bent slightly at the knee— w^hilst his shoulders inclined a 
little forward, and permitted his arms to dangle in front of him, as 
if they were suspended from his body by a string. It was the pre- 
cise attitude of a flunkey in a farce. 

“ There his a few gentlemen below, sir,” said the landlord, who 
was painfully impressive with the aspirate, ‘ ‘ who is hanshus to 
have the honor of your presence, sir.” 

“ Very few gentlemen, indeed,” said Mr. Amelia, “judging by 
the noise they made just now.” The landlord missed the point of 
this, and responded affably. 

“ Two dozeng, sir, panycisaly. ” Mr. Maddox gave an irrepres- 
sive flourish with his legs, and the landlord regarded him doubtful- 
ly. “This gentleman, halso,” said the landlord. “We shall be 
very pleased, sir.” 

“ May 1 ask the occasion of the gathering, sir?” said Mr. Mad- 
dox. 

“ It is a little club, sir,” replied the landlord, closing the door and 
washing his hands engagingly. “ A little club, sir, composed of 
retired su wants, sir. We meet at each other’s houses, sir, once a 
week, and having forty members, it takes some time between the 
gatherings at any special house, sir. Hi am hin the chair this heven- 
ing, sir, and shall be delighted to introduce you — beg pardon, sir — 
to hintroduce you.” 

He made a veiy special point of the aspirate in this last case to 
atone for its accidental omission, and Maddox w^as unaffectedly de- 
lighted with him. 

“ Personally,” he said, “ 1 shall be charmed.” Mr. Amelia had 
been disposed to resent the landlord’s invitation as an intrusion on 
his dignity, but he thought better of it, and contented himself with 
an evasion. 

“ This gentleman and I are engaged at present, Mr. Webling,” he 
said with dignity. “ Perhaps we may be able to avail ourselves of 
your kind invitation later on.” 

“Thank you, sir,” said Mr, Webling, drooping his shoulders a 
:iittle further in acknowledgment. “ The gentleman as have slep’ 


''THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 105 

iH this apartment has holwiz jined us. We keep it hup, sir, till ^ 
hearly hour.” 

With this statement he bowed himself away, and Mr. Amelia’s 
late junior laughed rejoicingly. 

“ Isn’t he beautiful?” he cried. Don’t let us lose a minute of 
him. The sunny, smiling grace of the thing!” He fell into aa 
imitation of Mr. Webling’s posture. “ That, I think, is the hatti- 
tude.” Mr. Amelia smiled faintly. “ Lord!” cried the junior, “ if 
I could only live beneath the roof of such a man and see him when 
I wanted ! What does he charge a week for his whiskers? Are his 
legs an extra to his lodgers? Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatcha- 
ble beauty!” 

“ You seem to think Mr. Webling amusing,” said Mr. Amelia. 

“Amusing?” cried Maddox. “Do you think they are all like? 
that — all the retired suvvants below stairs at this moment? For pity, 
sake, don’t lose a minute of them. They keep it hup till a hearly 
hour? Delightful! A refrain for a ballad. The Slave Released*., 
the Ballad of the Retired Suvvant. They keep it hup till a hearly^ 
hour” 

Mr. Amelia’s humor did not lie in this direction, but there was- 
something contagious in the lad’s high spirits, and he laughed,. 
Maddox sat down and began to laugh also and since there is, hap- 
pily, no emotion so catching as that of laughter, they had a good 
five minutes of it, with an amusement altogether disproportioned to 
the cause. When they had allowed mirth to run itself to a stand- 
still, Mr. Amelia carefully put out his candle, and they descended to 
the lower room together. The apartment was not very spacious, and 
the twenty-four gentlemen who occupied it were rather crowded 
already, but they made room for the new-comers, and squeezed 
themselves into corners to do it with great good humor. 

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Maddox, making himself at home at 
once, “ I am believed by competent judges to be a rather special 
hand at a bowl of punch, and I should take it as a favor if 1 were 
allowed to brew one here.” Mr. Webling smiled upon his right- 
hand neighbor — a smile inquiring and persuasive — and the right- 
hand neighbor turned and distributed the smile. “Thank you,”” 
said the youngster, laughing round. “ Mr, Webling’s domestic 
will, no doubt, procure the materials. Permit me to write out the 
list.” 

He busied himself with note-book and pencil for a moment, and 
then tearing out the leaf upon which he had written, folded a 
sovereign in it and gave it to the landlord, who rang the bell, and 
the little packet passed from hand to hand until it reached the door,, 
which was opened with some difficulty by reason of the presence of 
a very fat man in the corner whose chair blocked up the entry, 

“ Get the things marked down on that slip o’ paper at once, ” said 
the fat man, “ and put the kettle on the fire to bile.” 

“And Mary Hann,” said Mr, Webling, “wipe out the largest 
washing basin, and put it in the oven. Make it hot. You hear, 
Mary Hann?” 

“Yes, sir,” said Mary Ann from without, and a minute or two 
later she was heard to close the door at the foot of the area steps. 


106 


'^THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


jj 

“You was saying, Mr. Bordler,” said the fat man in the corner 
next the door. 

“ Yas,” said a simpering man at an opposite corner. “ I was a- 
saying that his lordship was despirate poor — despirate poor, as 
everybody knows. He’s got a puffick houseful of gells, and only 
one at a merriageable age. The young feller was also drelfly him- 
poverished by the excesses of his nubble pa, the late Lord Mon- 
tacute,” 

“ They was said to be fond of each other, was they not, Bordler?’* 
inquired the chairman. 

“ Yas,” said the simpering man. “ They was. Things was said 
as 1 would rayther not repeat. Perhaps they was true— perhaps ^ 
they was not; but that is neither here nor there, so to speak. ” 

“Exactly,” said the fat man, “but 1 am told as is there is a 
novah reach after the gell now, Bordler.” 

“ What is after the gell?” inquired the host and chairman. 

“ A novah reach,” replied the fat man with dignity. 

“Yes,” said Mr. Bordler, “a feller with three millyings of 
money.” 

“ If he’s got three millions of money,” inquired a personage who 
had not hitherto spoken since the entry of the two guests, “ what’s 
he want to over-reach the young woman for?” 

“ Novah reach,” said the fat man, “ is a foreign expression, sir. 
It signifies a low feller as has come into money.” 

“ Recent, 1 believe, is the meaning,” said another. 

“ You are right, Vidler,” said the fat man with some solemnity. 

A low feller as has come inio money, recent. Go on, Bordler.” 

“ The timber on the nubble earl’s estate,” pursued Mr. Bordler, 

“ is a-coming down. That 1 am aware of for a fact. His ludship is 
hanshus beyond anything to get the gell merried or engaged in time 
to save the timber.” 

“lam told the gell is handsome,” said the fat man. “ I remem- 
ber her mother as a fine attractive figure of a woman.” 

“ Hensom?” cried Mr. Bordler. “ Remarkable so. Perhaps the 
style is a leetle countrified — not altogether so dellikit as some tastes 
go for. For my own part, 1 like the dellikit style. Now, the Lady 
Hellenor Carford is mj^ beau idea of what a woman should be.” 

“ You was bred-up in Kent, Bordler,” said Mr. Vidler, “ and 
your loanin’ toward hop-poles is only natural.” 

At this sally the assembled gentlemen laughed, and beat upon the 
table with their glasses. Mr. V idler looked about him with a smile 
of conscious humor, and received a nod of recognition from Mr. 
Maddox, who found the whole conversation peculiarly engaging and 
enjoyable. The punch bowl, the kettle, and the materials for the 
promised beverage appearing in the very middle of the laughter, took 
nothing from the general hilarity, and the room being so crowded 
that the servant could find no access to it, the utensils and the 
bottles were taken round the edge of the door and passed hand over 
hand to Mr. Maddox, who sat with Mr. Amelia at; the head of the 
table— one on either side of the chairman. There was an impressive 
silence for a space whilst Mr. Maddox sliced the lemons, and taking 
.advantage of that fact, he spoke — 

“ Gentlemen,” he said, whilst he worked with careful vigor, “ I 


^^THE WAY OE THE WORLD.” 107 

feel a pride and a pleasure in my accidental presence here this even- 
ing, which 1 should not find it easy to exaggerate in expression. I 
am myself of humble birth, and 1 have never had the opportunity, 
which all of you have so richly enjoyed, of associating intimately 
with the titled classes. But, gentlemen, it is an Englishman’s 
proudest boast to know a lord. There are thoughtless people who 
have sneered at that fact, and held the sentiment up to ridicule. 
But surely it is a natural sentiment, and a gracious one. You your- 
selves must admit, gentlemen, that to the happy chance of associa- 
tion with barons, and earls, and viscounts, you owe much of that 
grace and that refinement which distinguish you from the vulgar 
herd. There may be those among you, gentlemen— I do not wish 
to feel too proud — but there may be those among you who have held 
intimate communion with dukes.” 

“Vidler,” said Mr. Bordler, “have enjoyed that distinction.’” 
Mr. Maddox, with the kettle in one hand and a large tin basting 
spoon in the otner, bowed to Mr. Vidler. 

“ The British aristocracy,” he pursued, “ is the pride and pillar 
of our constitution. 1 will ask you by and by to drink a toast.’” 
There was considerable applause at this announcement, and the 
popular opinion of Mr. Maddox was that he was a remarkably 
agreeable young fellow with an unusual flow of graceful language. 
For a little time that genial youngster occupied himself seriously 
with the preparations of the punch, and the grateful odors of whisky, 
rum, lemon, and a dash of maraschino, were borne to the nostrils of 
the assembled members of the club so sweetly that men spoke in 
murmurs when they spoke at all, and when four and twenty pairs 
of eyes watched the glass to the brewer’s lips as he tested the com- 
pound, four and twenty pairs of lips moved in unison with his, and 
every palate took the flavor of the brew in bright anticipation. 

“And now, gentlemen,” cried Mr. Maddox a little later, “are 
your glasses charged? 1 give you the British Aristocracy, and their 
tried and true and old associates, the members of this club.” 

The toast was received with enthusiasm, and tUe assembled 
gentlemen drank it standing. When they had resumed their seats 
somebody raised a cry of “ Vidler,” which was loudly taken up. 

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Vidler, “1 feel the compliment to the 
full. I should like to take it to myself, but it does not belong to 
me. It belongs, gentlemen, to our host and chairman, Mr. Web- 
ling.” 

At this the soul of Mr. Maddox exulted newly, for he had con- 
ceived a great admiration of the charms of Mr. W ebling, and but 
that he was surrounded by a very embarrassment of riches, could 
scarcely have borne to remove his eyes from him. 3Ir. Webling, 
however, turned out disappointingly, and after the execution of an 
ignominious verbal flounder sat down again. Later on Mr. Vidler 
proposed the health of Mr. Maddox, and the company sang “For 
he’s a jolly good fellow ” with so much fervor that the tenants of 
the houses to right and left appeared to tender a joint remonstrance. 
When these gentlemen had been smoothed down by a promise that 
there should be no more singing, Mr. Maddox returned thanks in 
a neat and appropriate speech, and shortly afterward the party- 
broke up. 


108 


'^THE WAY OF THE AVORLD.’’ 

“I hate the smell of tobacco in a crowded room,” said Mr. 
Amelia, as he and Maddox quitted the apartment, “If the night 
is fine 1 will walk a little way with you, and get a taste of fresh air 
^fter that abominable atmosphere.” 

The night was fine and moonlit, and for a little way they walked 
in silence. 

“ You didn’t seem so pleased as I was with that charming assort- 
ment of people,” said Mr. Maddox, nodding sideways and backwards 
to indicate the late place of meeting. 

“ Perhaps I was,” said Mr. Amelia, with peculiar dryness, “ but 
1 was thinking.” 

1 am in a reflective mood,” said the junior, after another space 
of silence, “I’m wondering whether if I were a nobleman 1 would 
keep a flunky.” 

“ I presume,” said Mr. Amelia, “ that you would do as other peo- 
ple do.” 

“ To eat a man’s bread, and to wear his clothes and live in his 
house, and to receive pay for it, and yet to render no service and owe 
no gratitude — it is a happy lot ! Does the equal of the British flunky 
exist elsewhere? 1 am young — I am untraveled — I am ignorant — I 
ask for information like Miss Dartle. 1 will go into the world and 
seek his peer, and if, as my heart foretells, 1 find him not, 1 will 
return to the land of my birth and find a flunky, and 1 will dress 
him gorgeously, and tend him, and feed him, and worship him, and 
bask in his splendors. When I think of the flunky my mental 
knees are loosened, and I fall a babbling. I have no words for him. 

“ Beam, beam, beam 

In thy plush and thy lace, Flunkee; 

And I would that my tongue fould utter 
The thoughts that arise in me.” 

“Your punch is curiously potent, Mr. Maddox,” said the little 
bantam of a man behind him, “ I fancied you drank very little of 
your own brew.” 

“It is not punch,” said Maddox, pausing beneath a lamp and 
regarding his companion 'With a somewhat glassy eye. ‘ It is emo- 
tion. Do you know who they were talking about when we got into 
the room? Do you know who the handsome gell was, whose mother 
the fat man remembered as a fine attractive figure of a woman?” 

“ No,” said Mr. Amelia, “ do you?” 

“ It was Lady Ella Santerre,” said the junior with some show of 
temper. “ Fancy nurturing a great fat brute like that to criticise the 
points of your wife and daughters, and your friends’ wives and 
daughters! And the man who simpered in the corner of the fire- 
place, who thought the lady’s style a leetle countryfied, and not alto- 
gether so dellikit as some tastes go fori To hear them name a lady 
is to feel ashamed. If Juno had gone to heaven and come down to 
•earth again as an angel she might have been fit to be that charming 
lady’s lady’s maid,” 

“This is rather a change of sentiment,” said Mr. Amelia. “ It 
is not so long since you were paying for punch and making compli- 
mentary speeches to them.” 

“ Compli— -,” began Maddox, “ complimen— ” He controlled 


109 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

himself and held out his hand. “ Good night. It isn’t your fault, 
Amelia. You were made so.” 

“ My dear fellow,” cried Mr. Amelia, “ you must let me have my 
little joke. I thought you meant that speech as a satire all along. 
1 knew you did. ” 

‘‘ You have depressed me,” said Maddox mournfully. “ I had 
thought I had an auditor.” 

” So you had,” cried the little man. “ I was heartily amused. I 
was indeed. It was a most amusing evening altogether.” He was 
as much aggrieved at being thought to have missed a jest as he 
would have b^een at the charge of picking a pocket. ” Give me your 
address,” he said to cover his annoyance. ‘‘We must see some- 
thing of each other.” Maddox pulled out a card case and Mr. 
Amelia saw the gleam of a gold watch chain. He noticed that the 
junior’s aspect had greatly changed for the better, and that he was 
not only well dressed but tidy, whereas in the Gallowbay days he 
had been invariably disordered, and generally dirty in hands and 
linen. 

‘‘ He has got a little money,” said Mr. Amelia when they had 
parted. ‘‘ And he has some brains into the bargain. I wonder if 
he will do anything. I shall do something, without his chances, 
but I wish I had them. It is a great thing to have staff in hand. 1 
think 1 see my way to something out of this evening. What was it 
that fellow O’Hanlon said ? ‘ Every lane’s end— -eveiy turning, yields 
a careful man work.’ That club of servants is an evident mine, and 
there ought to be a way to work it. ‘ The Scourge ’ would give 
something to have a reporter sitting regularly at its meetings, I’ll 
be bound.” 

These reflections brought him to his door, and when he entered he 
found Mr. Webling still up, and busily engaged in tidying the room 
in which the meeting had been held. 

‘‘ Mr. Webling,” he said, entering the apartment, and closing the 
door behind him with rather a secret air, ‘‘ This club of your affords 
you unusual facilities for acquiring information about the doings of 
the aristocracy.” 

‘‘ Infamation, sir!” cries Mr. Webling. ‘‘ There is scusly henny- 
thing in the houses of the great w^hich is not known at our club, sir, 
as soon as it is known at home.” 

‘‘Ah,” said Mr. Amelia thoughtfully. “I know a way, Mr. 
Webling, in which you might make a very considerable addition to 
your income — a very considerable addition.” 

‘‘ Do you, sir?” asked Mr, Webling. 

‘‘ I do, indeed,” returned his lodger. “ I should think you might 
see your way to fifty pounds a year.” 

‘‘ I wish you’d show me how, sir,” said the landlord with unusual 
vivacity. 

‘‘ It’s late now,” Mr. Amelia, answered, “ we’ll talk the matter 
over to morrow if you have an hour to spare. Goodnight.” The 
landlord returned his salute, and Mr. Amelia mounted the stairs and 
lit his candle. “ All these people communitcate with their old fel- 
low-servants,” he mused as he sat on the bedside. “They know 
everything that goes on. If I had the money I would do it myself. 
One or two light articles, perhaps a novel by a good hand, and all 


110 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WOKLD. 




the rest fashionable intelligence and gossip. A paper, a weekly 
paper established on those lines would go like wildfire. It would 
cut out ‘ The Scourge ' itself.” He kicked off his little shoes and 
stared at them thoughtfully. “ 1 must think this over. I believe I 
have found the way to fortune.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

To have the passionate desire of your heart within reach and not 
to dare to stretch out a hand and take it, is likely to make you 
neither proud of yourself nor happy. Bolsover Kimberley had 
scarcely a doubt left in his mind as to the earl’s willingness to- 
bring about a match between him and the Lady Ella or her sister. 
Of course he was a very poor spirited little fellow, and had no pre- 
tense to the fine instincts which adorn a gentleman, and yet it was 
not all cowardice which made him shrink from the declarations be- 
longed to offer. Perhaps after all he was not such a snob as he 
fancied, and had finer instincts than he guessed, but it was un- 
deniable that he was a weak creature. 

He was a member of parliament and a millionaire. Mr. Loch- 
leven Cameron, and the book on vulgar errors in English had done 
him so much good between them that when he took time he could 
speak without offending a fastidious ear. These were his advan- 
tages, and he was aware of them, humble as he was, and they gave 
him some little sense of self-possession. On the other hand he had 
been nobody to begin with — he had had no education worth talking 
about, notwithstanding the seven years of life in a long tailed blue 
coat and canary colored stockings — and he was singularly insignifi- 
cant in appearance. These were his disadvantages, and' he recognized 
them with groanings. He did not know that he was monstrously 
and absurdly overdressed. There are hundreds of men who ought 
to know that one thing of themselves much better than poor little- 
Kimberley could be expected to know it of /w'wiself. There is no 
power that will the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us. 
Shall we say ” More’s the pity,” or ” Thank heaven ”? 

You must please understand definitely that this young man waS' 
in love, and that howsoever small his capacity for a grand passion 
might be, he could hold as much of love’s maddening elixir as would 
fill him. If there were a bowl big enough to use in a game of cup 
and ball with Uranus it could but be full when it held its utmost, 
and jmu can say as much of a thimble. These are obvious reflec- 
tions, but we are apt to lose sight of them. The young swell, who 
is superbly handsome, and has a great fortune, who is irreproachably 
tailored, and writes a charming love song, is a person in wliose heart- 
pangs we find it easy to feel an interest. I can scarcely ask you to- 
feel an equal interest in Kimberley’s awkward raptures anu self-con- 
demning fears, but I will beg you to remember that they existed. 

Kow love, notwithstanding the absurd exaggerations of poets, 
playwrights, and novelists, is a mighty passion, and when it really 
gets the grip of a man it carries him along, willy nilly. 

In the House of Commons itself, and in the tea-room, the smokings 
room, the library, and the lobby, Kimberley learned many things. 


Ill 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

and among them much of the precise nature of the Earl of Wind- 
^ll’s liabilities and embarrassments. He learned that the wonder- 
ful old trees in Shouldershott Park were coming down, that the 
whole Shouldershott property was deeply involved, the house in 
Portman Square mortgaged, as the earl himself had said to Ella, “ to 
the chimney cowls.” He began to know that if he proposed to buy 
•off all the incumbrances which weighed upon the house there was 
scarcely anything in the Earl of Windgall’s power which that dis- 
tressed nobleman would not do for him. And he could do that and 
never feel it. He could charge the expenses of the whole mass of 
liabilities on the yearly produce of his own estate without feeling it, 
or he could discharge them all at once with a scarcely perceptible 
diminution of his fortune. 

Though he longed to do it he dared not yet propose for the Lady 
Ella’s hand, but the consideration of these things seemed to open 
up an easy way to a declaration. He turned the scheme over in his 
own mind fcr days and days, and at last he Mured desperately to Mr. 
Begg to request that gentleman’s presence in London. By this time 
Le had a set of resplendently furnished chambers in which every- 
thing was of a glistening newness, but on the M^hole in very good 
taste, for he had not trusted his own judgment, but had given an 
artistic designer of furniture cmte blanche. Mr. Begg waited upon 
him in these princely rooms, and found him in a Persian dressing 
gown with a cord of crimson silk about his waist, and an absurb 
smoking cap, embroidered with outlined figures of dancing demons, 
stuck with a shamefaced jauntiness sideways on his head. He 
offered so clammy a hand 1o the lawyer, and was so agitated in his 
demeanor, that Mr. Begg made up his mind that liis client had got 
into a scrape, and said to himself with a profound sense of his own 
sapience — ” A fool and his money. A fool and his money. ” The 
fatuous way in which Kimberley strove to stave off the approach- 
ing confidence confirmed him in his opinion. 

” Well, Mr, Kimberley,” he said at last, “ shall we get to busi- 
ness?” 

” Yes,” said Kimberley. “ You are Lord Windgall’s lawyer as 
well as mine?” 

” Yes,” returned Mr. Begg, and instantly abandoned his first the- 
ory for another. “ Sits the wind in that quarter?” quoted Mr. Begg. 

”1 am told,” said Kimberley, blushing fiercely and fidgeting 
with an ivory paper knife, “that Lord Windgall is very much in 
debt.” 

“ That is unfortunate,” said the lawyer, “ but you may hear that 
kind of rumor about almost everybody.” . 

“I want to know, if 1 can,” pursued Kimberley, not paying 
much heed to this stroke of fence, “ exactly what he owes, and who 
lias claims on him.” 

“Ah!” said Mr. Begg, Muth a soft slow expulsion of the breath. 
He stuck his gold-rimmed double glasses on his nose and looked at 
his client. “May 1 ask the motive of your curiosity?” 

Kimberley shifted in his chair under the lawyer’s scrutiny and 
was silent for half-a-minute. At last he blurted out, “ 1 want to 
buy his debts.” 

“Ah 1” said Mr. Begg again, precisely as before. Then he dropped 


112 , ^'THE WAY OF THE WOULD.’’ 

his glasses on his waistcoat and leaning back in his chair^ set the 
fingers and thumbs of his right and left hand very precisely to- 
gether. “ That would give you a great power over his lordship, 
Mr, Kimberley,” he said at last after a lengthy pause. 

‘‘Oh! it isn’t that,” cried Kimberley. “1 don’t want that. I 
mean it friendly, 1 assure you, 1 do indeed.” 

“You look for some advantage?” said the old lawyer, 

“Mr. Begg,” said Kimberley, lifting his eyes for a second and 
then dropping them again, “ I must ask you not to press me, 1 
must indeed.” 

“ However much I wished it,” answered Mr. Begg with thought- 
ful deliberation, “ I could not prevent you from carrying out your 
object. But 1 have enjoyed in a somewhat unusual degree the con- 
fidence of the Earl of Windgall, and 1 have been honored for many 
years by his lordship’s friendship. Anything in the nature of a 
threat — anything in the nature of an unfriendly pressure — which 
might be brought to bear upon him through any instrumentality of 
mine, and which might, in the course of business, be avoided" by 
any persuasion, or any ability I could employ, would be a grief to 
me. 1 will not ask you for any confidence you may not feel inclined 
to repose in me, but 1 confess 1 should like to know your ultimate 
object, Mr. Kimberley. You may be sure that 1 feel strongly in 
this matter, for you could get anybody else to do your business, and 
it is not a lawyer’s way, as a rule, to endeavor to thwart the wishes 
of a client whose aftairs are so considerable as your own.” 

“ That makes me respect you very much, sir,” said Kimberley. 
When lie had said it he was nine-tenths frightened and ashamed, but 
casting a glance at the lawyer he saw that the old gentleman smiled 
at his ingenuous declaration, and he felt easier about it at once. “ 1 
mean nothing unfriendly,” he added. • “ 1 sha’n’t do anything un- 
friendly, even if his lordship doesn’t — ” He paused in confusion,^ 
and took off the absurd smoking cap to rub his fingers through his 
hair. 

“Well now, Mr. Kimberley,” said Begg with an altered manner, 
as if he felt himself a little more at home with his client, “ it is my 
clear and unavoidable duty to you to tell you that this will be a veiy 
considerable enterprise. It will cost a pretty penny,” 

“ I — 1 suppose I can afford it?” said Kimberley, not defiantly, 
but questioniugly. Mr. Begg laughed. 

“ Why, yes,” he said with a shrug of the shoulders; “ it can’t 
ruin you. You can afford it, Mr. Kimberley, beyond a doubt. But 
there is a bottom to the bag, you know, even when it holds more 
than a million. 1 haw seen just such a fortune as yours squandered 
in a lifetime, and the man who owned it was buried as a pauper. 
That was a strange thing, but I saw it,” 

“ What would it cost to do it?” asked Kimberley. 

“ Before 1 give you an answer,” returned the lawyer, “forgive 
me if 1 press one question. Can you give me a definite promise that 
in case 1 act for you in this matter you will permit me to act for 
you all along, and that you will not press Lord Windgall — in anr 
way — in any way, Mr. Kimberley— on account of these liabilities 
without my knowlege?” 

“Yes,” said Kimberley. “ I promise that.” 


"^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 113 

“ Very well,” said Mr. Begg, deliberately. “ I believe I am in 
the possession of his lordship’s complete confidence.” He was not, 
hut his belief was natural. “His liabilities, speaking roughly, 
amount to about ninety thousand pounds. An annual cliarge of 
something like four thousand five hundred a year upon the estate is 
annually set apart for the payment of interest. The estate is not 
worth seven thousand per annum altogether. The principal mort- 
gagee insists upon payment or foreclosure, and money is tight just 
now and can only be raised at a sacrifice. 1 have tried my hardest, 
but ] can’t borrow a thousand pounds for his lordship at less than 
seven and-a-half per cent. There is a general feeling abroad that the 
estate is involved beyond its capacity to pay. That is not a belief 
which is at all flattering to the management of any firm, and it is 
not well founded, but it exists and we cannot help it. As a conse- 
quence the timber in the home park will have to go, and I confess 
that if I can see any way of saving that 1 shall be deeply gratified.” 

‘‘Will you kindly pay the mortgagee,” said Kimberley, ‘‘and 
transfer the mortgage to me?” 

‘‘ At the present rate of interest?” asked Mr. Begg. 

“ Yes, if you please,” Kimberley answered. ‘‘ You can tell his 
lordship that the timber need not be sold, but don’t mention me in 
the matter at all. And will you be good enough to buy up all the 
other liabilities for me, Mr. Begg?” 

‘‘ You had better give me written instructions to act,” replied 
Mr. Begg, and Kimberley having set paper, pens, and ink before 
him, the lawyer drew up a letter (which Ihe client signed), setting 
out with legal precision the instructions Kimberley desired to con- 
vey. ‘‘And now,” said Mr. Begg, when the letter was written, 
signed, and transferred to his own pocket-book, ‘‘ in case the Earl 
of Windgall should be reluctant — Let me put it in another way. 
In case you should ever be disposed to be rid of this investment — 
this proposed investment — you will never make it a matter of pres- 
sure with his lordship, Mr. Kimberley?” 

‘‘ Never,” said Kimberley earnestly. 

“ It is not an unsound in\restment,” pursued the lawyer, “ but it 
is not one 1 should advise as a purely business arrangement. Now 
suppose that you should ever wish to press a sense of obligation 
upon his lordship?” 

‘‘Oh, sir,” ciied Kimberley in an eager, wounded voice, ‘‘ 1 
couldn’t do it. 1 couldn’t do such a thing.” 

There would seem to be a limit beyond which the human soul 
will not suffer itself to be tortured by shyness, and that limit being 
reached, it is noticeable that the shy man becomes suddenly bold, 
the shrinking coward blossoms suddenly into a hero. It is a strange 
transformation— almost as wonderful as if a toad-stool should sud- 
denly become an oak— but it happens sometimes. In Kimberley’s 
case it happened now. 

‘‘ Mr. Begg,” he said (and the old lawyer knew instinctively that 
the confidence hitherto denied was about to be offered), ‘‘ before 1 
came into my money I was in a very poor station of life. I was a 
.copying clerk in a lawyer’s office, and I had thirty-five shillings a 
week. Even at that time I—” his head drooped, his heart beat 
noisily, and he could have wrung the perspiration from his hands — 


114 


'‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

“ 1— I formed an attachment. Of course I knew it was very ’opeless 
and silly and all that.” 

Mr. Lochleven Cameron and the little book on vulgar errors were 
forgotten at this moment, and Kimberley glided back into his familiar 
accent, and his old locutions. 

” 1 hadn’t ought to have thought about it — to have let myself think 
about it — but if it hurt me it didn't hurt anybody else, and 1 was liv- 
ing very lonely to be sure and had nothing much to care for, or to 
care for me. Jt was an attachment to a lady I had never spoke to, 
and was never likely to speak to, but 1 don’t know that it didn’t 
make me ’appy after all. I ain’t much now,” said the poor little 
_ Kimberley, ” am 1? But I’m a better man than 1 should have been 
if 1 had never seen her. W ell, 1 got my money, Mr. Begg, and the 
lady’s noble father asked me to his house, and I went there as a vis- 
itor. 1 was un’appy then, and 1 am now, because 1 know what a 
difference there is between us. But for their station in life they are 
very poor, and I’ve got more money than 1 know what to do with, 
and 1 thought 1 might say to his lordship that whatever way he de- 
cided it would make no difference to my feelings, and 1 should like 
him to take the papers 1 wanted to have with me and use them as a 
wedding piesent.” 

It was very lamely and impotently put, but it was touching for all 
that, though a snob spoke it, and an elderly lawyer heard it. 

” That is very creditable, Mr. Kimberley,” said the lawyer after 
an interval of silence, whilst the little man sat newly crushed before 
him. “ But in case his lordship should feel himself compelled to 
decline the alliance he would also be compelled to decline the gift.” 

” He couldn’t,” cried Kimberley, with a weak triumphant flush. 
“ 1 could burn the papers. ” 

” He might still insist on making payment,” said Mr. Begg with a 
droll smile. 

” There’s no law to compel a man to take another man’s money,” 
answered Kimberley. 

” I can’t dispute the legal accuracy of that statement, Mr. Kim- 
berley,” said the lawyer with a broader smile, “ Laws, 1 suppose, 
are made because they are wanted, and 1 have never met a case in 
which any legal machinery was needed to compel a man to receive 
money. As for the delicacies of the situation — they lie between Lord 
Windgall and yourself.” Mr. Begg mused for a little space. ” He 
has improved remarkably, ’ ’ he said to himself. “Not that there isn’t 
room for improvement still, but he has effected a good deal already. 
Eeally, 1 don’t see why I should throw cold water on the scheme. 
He’s a good-hearted little beggar, and he’s a member of the House 
of Commons, and he has a pot of money. I don’t care to think of 
Lady Ella Santerre marrying such a fellow, and yet — come now! — if 
1 had a daughter of my own 1 should think her a dreadful fool if she 
refused him.” 

” You’ll do what 1 want, won’t you, Mr. Begg?” asked Kimberley. 

” Well,” said the old lawyer, “ 1 suppose Imust. You would like 
the business arranged quickly, of course?” 

” Oh yes,” said Kimberley, “ as soon as possible.” 

” And you say 1 can ease his lordship’s mind about the timber?” 

"You might say you had arranged for somebody to take up the 


115 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’^ 

mortgage on the old terms, but please don’t mention me at present,” 
returned Kimberley: and with a. word or two more Mr. Begg took 
his leave. 

” It’s not a romantic exterior,” said the lawyer as he walked away, 
“ but it’s a very romantic attachment, and a very romantic story 
altogether. 1 wonder what Windgall will have to say to him! He 
has been in the mire so long that I fancy he won’t be particular as 
to what hand pulls him out of it. My little millionaire isn’t afraid 
to put the shovel in, it seems. A dozen such attachments would 
make a difference to him.” Mr. Begg laughed at that fancy. He 
had not often had an experience so singular as that which Kimberley 
had afforded him, and he could scarcely get the memory of it out of 
his head for a day or two. 

It did not take long for Mr. Begg to get through the necessary 
business for the transfer of the mortgage, and Windgall was in- 
formed of his good fortune at once. It never occurred to his lordship 
to ask by whose good offices the ancestral trees had escaped for this 
time. Mr. Begg arranged these business matters, and expended a 
great deal of care and trouble over them ; a care and trouble with 
which the profit reaped by his firm was not at all commensurate. 
But even amongst lawyers the feudal sentiment is not altogether 
dead, and Messrs. Begg, Batter and Bagg would much rather not 
have made a penny a year out of Windgall’s affairs than have lost 
them altogether. My lord knew this, and had a sort of pride in it, 
and at the same time a sort of gratitude for it. 

Even when everything was prepared for him Kimberley delayed 
to put his scheme into execution. A house of his — the best of his 
properties — having lost its tenant, he went to live in it, and Gallow- 
bay saw much of him. Shouldershott Castle also saw much of him, 
and he and Windgall were a good deal together. He was still shy, 
but the newmess of his position was beginning to wear away, and the 
sense of his possessions did not gall him so much as it had done. 
The moth was always fluttering about the candle, and fluttering 
away from it, and the meaning of his flutterings was so open to the 
general eye that the county talked without disguise of his attentions 
to Windgall’s second daughter, and of his lordship’s evident encour- 
agement. 

In these days there was a novel sense of peace and rest upon the 
spirit of the master of Shouldershott Castle. He had ceased to tor- 
ment himself about the meanness of Ashing for Kimberley. Partly 
because he had grown used to him, and partly because the world at 
large had long since been defied, and very largely because Kimberley 
himself had so much improved, the earl thought less of the bitterness 
of that sacrifice than it had seemed likely he would ever be able to 
think of it. The timber was saved, and an open shame was thereby 
avoided. And, wonderful to relate, nobody bothered him for 
money. It was an understood thing in the public mind that if Kim- 
berley married the Honorable Miss Alice Santerre there would be a 
quid pro quo paid somehow and somewhere. He would have to pay 
for his fair Circassian, and at least the market price would be ex- 
pected. But when the fatal hour came; when Kimberley spoke at 
last, and his lordship consented, then, if the young lady refused, her 
father knew that trouble would follow upon these halcyon days. 


116 ^^THE WAY OE THE WORLD/’ 

Tb.e patience of creditors would not last for ever, but would grow 
brittle on a sudden and break ofi short. Well— if it were a fool’s 
paradise it was paradisaical still and lie would live in it until liis 
time came. 

Sometimes when Kimberley appeared bis lordsbip would experi- 
ence aTiitle flutter of hope and fear, and never without reason. The 
little millionaire always came prepared to speak, and always looked 
as if the weight •was on his mind. He had been a millionaire for a 
year and a half, and for nine months member of parliament for Gal* 
iowbay, before he found courage for the plunge. Then he drove up 
desperately to the Castle and asked for a private interview with his 
lordship. 

“My lord,” he said, when they were closeted together, “ I -want to 
speak to you on a matter of the greatest importance.” Nobody can 
tell what agonies of hope, what heart-searchings, what desperate re- 
solves of courage, and what reactions of fright he had been through 
before he had come to this, or in what a sick whirl of emotions he 
sat when he thus addressed the noble earl. 

“ Perhaps 1 guess your purpose, Kimberley,” said his lordship, 
who was in something of a tremor also. To his amazement Kim- 
berley began to Ing from his overcoat pocket a bundle of legal-look- 
ing papers. This was done in a fumbling and clumsy way, and 
Kimberley’s shaky hand turned the pocket inside out and could 
scarcely manage to restore it. 

“ My lord,” said Kimberley. “ I want to ask your lordship’s ac- 
ceptance of these papers. 1 want to ask you to accept them, if you 
please, before 1 go any further.” 

His lordship took them and looked them over, understanding them 
at a glance. 

“ 1 — 1 scarcely see my way to that, Kimberley,” he said, in strange 
amaze at this curious method of opening the negotiations which he 
knew were coming. 

“My lord,” began Kimberley a third time, panting a little in his 
speech and keeping his white face bent downward as he spoke, “ I 
want you to take them. They are my property and if you don’t take 
them I shall burn them, whatever happens. I am going to ask a 
question, my lord, and all the happiness of my future life depends 
on your lordship’s answer. But I want you to take them first, and 
then you can feel free, my Idrd, to say Yes, or No.” 

“I fail to understand you,” said his lordship. “1 am not a 
wealthy man, but 1 trust you are not inclined to think so ill of me 
that you feel tempted to try to bribe me for any purpose.” 

He succeeded in throwing an imitation of a laugh into his voice as 
he said this. 

“My lord,” said Kimberley. “1 don’t want to bribe you, my 
lord, and that’s why 1 ask you to take those papers now, before 1 say 
another word. You know what they are, my lord?” He took up 
the packet, now somewhat scattered, in both hands, and looked at 
Windgall. 

“Yes,” said his lordship, “ 1 know perfectly well what they are.’* 

“ Then — ” said Kimberley, and rising and walking to the fire- 
place, he dropped them in a heap upon the smoldering coal. My 
lord seized the poker and raked them all, a little soiled but unsinged. 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 117 

into the fender, and then falling on one knee picked them up, and 
finally carried them to the table. 

“ Kimberley,” he said then, ” if I permitted that, 1 should accept 
from your hands a gift so enormous that I could refuse you nothing 
in return? for it. 1 dare not lay myself under such an obligation to 
any man alive.” 

“They are yours, my lord,” said Kimberley. “I shall never 
touch them again. No power on earth should ever make me take a 
penny on account of ’em!” 

“ My dear Kimberley,” cried his lordship, desperately, “ 1 can't 
accept them. I can’t take these things in the dark. Wbat do you 
want in return for them?” 

“ Nothing, my lord,” said Kimberley, and so stood silent for a 
minute. Then somehow he found courage, and looked Windgall 
simply in the face. If 1 don’t speak and act like a gentleman, my 
lord, you must forgive me. 1 was very poorly brought up, and I 
haven’t had time to learn everything. 1 want you to feel, my lord, 
that you are not under any obligation. 1 want you to feel that you 
can afford to send me about my business, my lord.” 

“ Great Heaven!” cried his lordship, hot with shame and miseiy, 
and yet feeling that he had no right to be angry. “ Do you know 
how insulting all this is? Do you know how horribly humiliating 
it is? What do you want to ask?” 

“ 1 am very sorry that j^’ou see it in that light, my lord,” said 
Kimberley ; “ 1 didn’t mean it so. As for the papers, jmu can’t make 
me take them back, my lord. They’re done with. There isn’t a 
single mortgage on your property, my lord, and whatever you say 
can’t make any difference. ” 

“Well,” said his lordship, with a great sigh, “go on; what do 
you ask in return for this?” 

“ I don’t ask anything in return for it, my lord,” said Kimberley. 
“ You’re under no obligation to me, my lord. But — ” His face 
began to blush, and he fell to stammering and wringing his hands 
together. ‘ ‘ 1 want to ask you, my lord, for the hand of your lord- 
ship’s daughter. Lady Ella.” 


CHAPTER XV. 

His lordship stood wonder-stricken and almost horrified at this 
declaration. He had never dreamed, since Kimberley had first 
come beneath his roof that he would ask for Ella, but he had 
schooled himself to the trembling hope that her sister might be 
chosen, so that he experienced now much such a curious shock in 
mind as one feels bodily on taking up a light weight for a heavy 
one, or falling a step on what seemed to be level ground. There is 
not much in the thing, but it brings you up with an amazing shake, 
and a sense of disaster. It took Windgall a full minute to pull him- 
self together, and a minute's silence in such a case as this is quite a 
gap in nature. 

“My dear Kimberley,” said my lord, awaking to a sense of 
extreme awkwardness of so prolonged a silence. “ Forgive me for 
the surprise I must have manifested at — 1 was unprepared — I was 
not altogether unprepared— 1 had expected^ — ” 


118 ‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

He trailed off into silence, and for the time liis self-possession 
played truant. Ella? That altered the matter. She knew more of 
the world than Alice, she was older and more competent to judge 
of things, and to tell the truth his lordship was a little afraid of his 
eldest daughter, good and affectionate as she was, for she had a 
most queenly way with her and could look superb scorn at an}’' 
baseness. 

As for Kimberley — his heart failed him altogether. He dared to 
love so high above him, and he dared to hope and to ask. But 
there was nobody in the world who could appreciate more clearly 
than himself the insolent audacity of his passion. The earl’s evi- 
dent amazement wounded no self-love in him, but his own hopes lay 
at his heart like lead. He had dared to hope. He had been 
brought near enough to hope. Two years ago when the passion 
that had now grown to such a height, had been a pretty sentiment 
to sigh over, to thrill over in his own meek weak way, to blush at 
in the night time, as he lay alone, the sense of hopelessness had 
never been difficult to bear, because he had never lived in the same 
hemisphere with hope, and the goddess of his poor dreams had 
shone for him at an astronomic distance. 

“So far as 1 am concerned,” said his lordship, “ 1 can say noth- 
ing. 1 will submit your proposal to my daughter, but — I am 
powerless — altogether powerless. Will you — You are naturally 
anxious for an early answer, and perhaps it will be best to consult 
Ella at once. Shall I do so, and will you await me here?” 

Kimberley had shot his bolt, and for the time being he had no 
great nerve or resolution. 

“I’d rather go home, my lord,” he managed to say, “ and I shall 
be obliged if you will send me a message.” 

He went away, leaving the papers scattered about the table, and 
never thought of them. My lord eyed them askance, but said noth- 
ing. If Ella should say “ Yes ” he could take them, and there at a 
stroke was an end of all the troubles which had weighed upon him 
since he had come into his encumbered estates, and his almost barren 
title. If she should say “Yes ” — but what an If was here!” 

Windgall saw his guest to his carriage, and shook hands with 
him with agitated warmth, and then returning to the library, sat 
down, and turned over the papers which meant so much to him. 
He began to see more clearly all that Kimberley had intended, and 
curious as it may seem, he began to find something remarkably 
worthy of respect in Kimberley’s character. The thing had been 
done as clumsily, and with as little tact of grace as was easily con- 
ceivable, and yet there was a certain manliness, courage, and hon- 
esty in it. It was insulting, it was humiliating to him, to show so 
clearly a belief that he could be influenced by the proposer’s money, 
and yet, after all, the belief was so obviously true. It was abomina- 
bly awkward; it was munificently generous. It was snobbish: it 
was princely. 

If Kimberley could fitly have translated himself, he would have 
shown to more advantage, though he would simply have had to say 
that the lady must be unhampered in her choice. If she could freely 
stoop from her imperial place to pity him, if she could take his de- 
votion and his wealth for her own service and be happy— w^ell, who. 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 119 

"but a lover shall say what then? But that she should be drawn to 
him with a chain, that she should take his money for her father’s 
sake, and should come unwillingly, drawn by fear or duty, and 
should be unhappy with him, and should scorn him and despise her- 
self : all this was scarcely bearable to think of. 

Taking it altogether, Windgall was nearer to a proper appreciation 
of Kimberley’s feelings than might have been expected. Perhaps 
few men could be wholly angry at a proffer like Kimberley’s. 
IS’inety thousand pouuds is a regal gift, and it was in no sense as 
purchase-money, but purely as a gift that the little man had offered 
it. Of course it was impossible to accept it, and yet it was impossi- 
ble to force the giver to take it back again. There was some con- 
solation in that thought. If Kimberley chose to fulfill his threat 
and to burn the papers, or if he simply repudiated the earl’s pay- 
ments, and sent them back again, there would be nothing for it but 
to sit down under that indignity — and keep the money. The pride 
of so poor a man as Windgall had not life enough to stir up any 
great wrath in him as he thought of that alternative. 

It was not in the least degree in the world a temptation, but merely 
and purely a fancy, when he thought how easy it would be to stir 
those papers into the fire, and write to say that the match Kimber- 
ley had proposed was a simple impossibility. Windgall could never 
have been capable of that, under any conditions whatsoever, but he 
thought about it idly, as a thing within his po yer. He heard Kim- 
berley’s w^ords again— “ There isn’t a single mortgage on your prop- 
erty, my lord, and whatever you say can’t make any difference. ” 
He rang the bell half mechanically, and on the servant’s appearance 
sent a message to Ella, asking for her presence. She came smil- 
ingly, though she saw the anxiety in her father’s face, and dreaded 
some new trouble. 

“ Sit down, my dear,” said the earl, placing a seat for her near 
the central table. “ I have something I want to say to you.” He 
began to pace up and down the room, wondering how he should 
begin. “ I want you to understand, my dear,” he said, nervously, 
pausing in his walk to push some trifle backward and forward on 
the table, ” 1 want you to understand that you are free to act just 
as you will, and that I am nothing more than an embassador in 
what 1 have to say. ” 

Ella had but newly returned from a walk in the park, and was 
unaware of Kimberley’s visit of that morning, but perhaps it was 
not altogether to be wonderecF at that she s^ipposed her father’s 
speech to be the preamble to an otter cf marriage. 

” Let me tell you all the circumstances,” he went on, beginning 
his march up and down the room again. “You see those papers on 
the table? They have been given into my hands this morning. 
They are worth ninety thousand pounds, and they have been offered 
to me, expressly without reserve or condition, freely, and as a gift. 
They include every serious liability I have in the world, and if 1 
could accept them I should be free of the nightmare of debt which 
has weighed upon me ever since I was one-and-twent}". ” 

Ella had arisen from her seat, and stood now with both hands on 
the back of her chair, her glance following him to and fro. 

“And you cannot accept them?” she asked. 


120 ‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.'’ 

“ They were offered expressly without condition,” he repeated, 
“ and the giver declares that nothing 1 could do or say, will make 
him take tl»em back again. But iiilhe same breath with that un- 
conditional gift—” He stood still with his face half-turned away 
from her, and glancing at her sideways, and finding her eyes still 
fixed upon him, walked on again in visible agitation. 

” In the same breath with that unconditional gift — ” she said, 
prompting him. 

“ He asked me,” said Windgall, pausing once again, “ for your 
hand in marriage. ’ ’ He took courage to look at her as he spoke, 
and saw that she had lowered her eyes. She was very pale, and her 
fingers pressed tightly on the faded morocco of the chair. “ Your 
suitor, Ella,” he went on, “ is a wealthy man, and is acquainted 
with my affairs. He seems to have thought that by this princely 
gift he would secure an answer which could not be prejudiced by 
any sense of my own liabilities, and the offer of the gift, which 
might otherwise have been insulting and humiliating, was made 
with a sense of delicacy and a fineness of feeling which — in short, 
a great delicacy — a most gentlemanly consideration.” 

She kept silence though he paused and walked up and down the 
room half-a-dozen times before he spoke again, 

“ Ella,” said the earl, laying his hand timidly upon her arm, 
“ you know, 1 am sure, that there is nothing in the world ■vrhich 1 
would ask you to do if I thought that by it, or through it, you 
would be unhappy — permanently unhappy. ’ ’ 

He talked rather to persuade himself than her. 

“ 1 am sure of that, dear,” she answered with downcast eyes.. 
Did she guess? Windgall asked himself. Did she know who the 
suitor was? Would she suffer any of the shames Avhich had assailed 
himself? He almost dared to hope she would refuse.. 

“ I should not,” he said, “ in any case have had any course open 
to me but to consult you. 1 could not even have said No wnthout 
your knowledge. But there are circumstances — ’ ’ 

“ I know, dear,” she answered in a composed voice. ' 

“ Y"ou know our miserable necessities, Ella,” he pleaded, but a 
swift gust of shame heated him from head to foot, and he moved 
away from her. “ 1 can’t force your inclinations in a matter like 
this, my dear. 1 leave you to exercise your discretion. You — y'ou 
haven’t even asked your suitor’s name, Ella.” 

She looked up and saw his gray features writhing after a smile, 
and at that she ran to him and thr^ her arms about his neck, and 
a sudden tear stung bitterly at each of the poor nobleman’s eyes. 

“ My— my dear,” he said brokenly, “ 1 won’t have you grieving 
about it. I won’t have you doing a thing for my sake which you 
may repent all your lifetime. I’m — I’m not a heartless father, Ella. 
Y'ou must not let the thought of me weigh too much with you.” 

“If it depends on me to put an end to all your troubles, dear,” 
she said, “ they are ended already.” 

“ You know who it is?” asked her father. He felt desperately 
that the long delay of Kimberley’s name only made the matter seem 
the worse. “ Shall I,” he asked lamely, “ shall 1 make Kimberley 
happy?” He stood with an arm about her waist, and both her arms 
were round his neck, and she was taller than he, so that he felt a 


121 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WOKLD.” 

certain loss of dignity, as if lie were being sheltered and protected 
in a way which was scarcely creditable to his manhood. She looked 
down at him, and answered simply: 

A es. 

“ You are the best daughter in the world,” he said. She shook 
her head with a sad smile, and then stooped down to kiss him. He 
moved suddenly from her embrace, and took to pacing the room 
once more, whilst Ella walked slowly to one of the windows and 
looked out across the leafless park. 

“ Will you — take time to think, Ella?” asked Windgall pausing 
near her. She turned upon him with a smile, which he remembered 
many and many a time afterward, it was so wan and cold. 

” No, dear,” she answered, ” 1 shall not change my mind.” 

“ You will be unhappy,” cried the wretched nobleman. “You 
will break your heart, my dear. I can’t — 1 can’t sell my child for 
money. ’ ’ 

This was inconsistent, no doubt, but it was not unnatural. The 
noble earl had a tolerably good heart, but a torpid imagination, and 
until this longed-for thing was actually upon him he had not realized 
what it might mean. 

“ I shall not be unhappy, dear,” said Ella. “ Let us speak of it 
no more just now. Do you write to Mr. Kimberley, or do you see 
him?” 

“ 1 promised him an answer by messenger,” replied the earl. He 
had made his protest. He could not help making it, but he was not 
sorry to find it disregarded. And, after all, might he not have been 
agitating himself without reason, and walking in a shadow altogether 
vain — cast only by his own foolish fears ? She could have whatever her 
heart might desire if she married Kimberley, and in her own house- 
hold she would rule to a certainty. She would be able to secure brill- 
iant matches for her sisters, and that of ilself w^ould be a great joy 
to her, and would compensate for much. If she could only think it 
so, Kimberley’s offer was a stroke of almost unalloyed good fortune. 
He was no less presentable than hundreds of men who, in these sub- 
versive days, had intruded themselves into good society, and his shy- 
ness was a great point in his favor. He would not obtrude himself 
upon the notice of the distinguished guests who would throng his 
wife’s saloons. It was probable that he would hide himself when 
she gave her most brilliant entertainments, and with her own birth 
and beauty, and her husband’s money, Ella could make for herself 
an enviable place in the world. As he thought of these things, his 
late terrors and repentances began to seem most foolishly exagger- 
ated. Ella was not a child, but a grown woman who knew the 
worth of wealth and the social advantages she could secure through 
a rich marriage. He and she had no reason to be anything but 
happy; and having made up his mind to this conclusion, he remem- 
bered her smile. 

But he would have no more repentances or fears; and sitting down 
at once at the center table, he took up a pen with intent to write to 
Kimberley. Ella, without a word, approached him, bent down 
and kissed him, and so left the room. He noticed that, in stooping 
to him, she had laid her hand upon the table, and touching one of 


122 ^^THE WAY OF THE WOULD.’’ 

Kimberley’s scattered papers there, had suddenly withdrawn her 
hand as if the contact had stung her. 

When Ella had gone Windgall sat nibbling at his pen, not by any 
means a lordly figure, and feeling on a sudden wondrously old and 
cold. 

My dear Kimberley,” he wrote, and then sat drearily staring 
at the paper. ” I have the happiness to inform you,” he went on 
suddenly, eager to have the whole thing over, ” that I have laid 
your proposal before my daughter, and that — ” There he stopped, 
and took to nibbling at his pen again. 

“Confound the fellow,” he broke out; “why should I study 
terms with him? And that — and that she empowers me to inform 
you of her acceptance of your flattering offer. Flattering offer! 
Flattering offer, be hanged! I. presume,” he began to write again, 
“ that you will afford me an early opportunity to congratulate you 
personally. 1 am, my dear Kimberley, yours faithfully, Windgall.” 

He addressed this missive, and then rung the bell and dispatched 
a servant to Gallowbay. Kimberley had been on the tenter-hooks 
all this time, and had endured as many sorts of mental misery as one 
man can well hold in the course of a single day. In all the stories 
he had ever read where the young man of humble breeding turned 
out to be a prince and straightway married the princess, the love- 
making appeared to be conducted with a light heart, and the dis- 
guised prince in especial seemed to be happy when the bonds of 
servitude were thrown away and he claimed the lady as his own. 
The story has been told a thousand times, and Kimberley knew it 
in more than one of its multitudinous forms. Perhaps that happy 
prince, the hero of the story, had been aware of his own high birth 
all along, perhaps he was not by nature a shy man, like Kimberley; 
or the iron of enforced servitude among the swineherds, or the scul- 
lery boys had nol eaten so deeply into his soul as had Kimberley’s 
service in the canary smalls and his long years of drudgery in Mr. 
Blandy’s office. Even when my lord’s missive reached him, and he 
knew himself the Lady Ella’s accepted lover, he was very far from 
being happy. He had not the remotest idea as to how he ought to 
act in this new condition of affairs, and the thought of the possibly 
laborious etiquette of the great was like a nightmare to him. Ought 
he to ride over at once post-haste and express to Ella the raptures 
proper to the occasion? Somehow the raptures did not rise, though 
he loved her (if ever a man loved a woman yet) with all the force of 
his nature. Ought his first visit to be paid in formal state to her 
father? Ought her father to call upon him? 

The book on etiquette, though ransacked from cover to cover, 
unfortunately afforded no hint of guidance on this momentous 
theme, and Kimberley had no one to advise him. He had bidden, 
the messenger to stay and to partake of some refreshment, and my 
lord’s servitor was obliging the Kimberley household with the details 
of the day’s proceedings so far as they were known in the meagerly- 
peopled servants’ hall at Shouldershott Castle. Whilst Kimberley 
sweated and stewed over the book on etiquette above-stairs, the 
ladies and gentlemen below learned how he had been closeted with 
his lordship for half-an-hour, and how on his taking leave his lord- 
ship had been closeted with the Lady Ella for half-an-hour, and how 


133 


‘'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

tlie Lady Ella had been remarked on as looking a leetle palish and 
disturbed, and how it had been generally assumed that her sister 
Alice had been tlie object of the millionaire’s attention, and how 
that fiction was now exploded, 

Kimberley’s own man, lounging at the fire, was of opinion that 
whoever got him would have no catch apart from his forchin, which 
was no doubt considaWe, and my lord’s faithful servitor was good 
enough to say that his people was povert5’’-struck enough to put up 
with anything. Where is the old servant nowadays — the servant 
who ate his master’s bread with lo3\alty, and was faithful to the 
house that gave him shelter? Is he quite dead and vanished, and is 
there none left but the over-fed spy, the private detective whom you 
pay to slander and despise you? 

After infinite labor of spirit, Kimberley resolved to write a letter, 
and in the course of an hour or two he spoiled half a ream of paper 
or thereabout. Finally, he produced a note which, though a little 
bald and inexpressive, was not so wretched a failure as he thought it. 

“ Dear Lord Windoall,” he wrote, “lam greatly obliged by 
the kind promptitude of your reply.” That if you will look for it 
is a sentence to be found in that valuable work “ The Universal 
Letter Writer.” “I am profoundly sensible of the honor you do 
me in accepting the proposed alliance.” Vide “Letters from a 
Suitor of Comparatively Humble Birth to the Father of his Fiance.” 
‘ ‘ 1 shall be glad to know when it will be most convenient for me 
to call and pay my respects to Lady Ella and yourself.” 

]My lord’s servant took this letter home with him and Windgall 
answered by the post. 

“ My dear Kimberley, — You will make us much happier than 
we could otherwise be by waiving all ceremony. If you are not 
otherwise engaged come over to luncheon to-moiTow, and let us be- 
gin to feel at once that you are one of the family.” 

Kimberley, not in the least prepared to feel like one of the family, 
obeyed this invitation. Lady Ella gave him a hand like marble, and 
he stooped ®ver it and kissed it. It was a dull, dull, dreadful meal 
to all three who sat at table, and it is not too much to say that 
though all three suffered the millionaire’s heart was the heaviest and 
the sorest. For if Ella suffered she had the consolation, so dear to 
the nobler sort of women, that she was a sacrifice. Offering herself 
to a loveless life, she freed her father from all monetary troubles, 
and she had persuaded herself that this was her appointed duty in 
the world. And if Windgall suffered he had locked in the drawers 
of his library' table as solid a compensation as he could well ask 
for. But Kimberley had no consolations, and knew only that he 
had expected somehow to be happy, and was, in spite of his pros- 
perous wooing, more miserable than he had ever been before. 

He had bought that morning, at the chief jeweler’s at Gallow- 
bay, a magnificent ring, and he made shift to produce it after 
luncheon, and to offer it to the lady. He dared not lake her hand 
and to slip the ring upon the appropriate finger. 

“ Lad}’^ Ella,” he said, with a profound dejection, “ I can’t tell 
you ’ow ’appy you have made me.” 


124 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD/’ 

He knew that he had fallen again into the old vulgarity of tone, out 
of which he had taken such pains to struggle, and he would have 
rejoiced if the floor could have opened and have swallowed him. 

Ella made no reply, but her father, anxious to preserve a seeming 
satisfaction, put his arm about her waist and kissed her. Her cheek, 
was like ice and her whole figure trembled, 

“ Come away, Kimberley,” cried the earl, with a ghastly hilarity*. 
“ We have a hundred things to talk about.” 

Kimberley bowed to Ella, and she inclined her head in answer’: 
The earl, with his arm drawn through the little millionaire’s, bustled 
him with simulated gayety from the room. There were bitter com- 
punctions in his heart, and he was alarmed for Ella’s self-restraint 
and his own. 

Left thus alone, she listened to the retreating footsteps, until hav- 
ing traveled the unclothed oak of the gallery they were lost upon the 
carpet of the stair. Then, gliding swiftl}'' to the door she turned 
the key, and with outstretched arms and ghostly face, fled back and 
cast herself at full length upon a couch, and hid the hateful world 
from her eyes, and cried bitterly, with hot tears distilled and low 
moans torn from the very heart of despair. 


CHAPTER XVL 

1 VENTURE to believe that the veracious history of the struggles of 
a young man who has gone up to London with intent to earn his 
living by his pen, has never yet been written, and that when it 
comes to be written it will make very entertaining reading. It will 
have, of course, to be done in the most intimate manner, and will 
have to include so many curious studies and strange episodes, 
that perhaps its author, when he comes, will do best to postpone the 
publication of his work until he himself is comfortabl}'^ tucked away 
under that grassy counterpane beneath which even the most reviled 
of mortals can sleep in peace. Such a histoiy would probably in- 
clude the narrative of many feasts of reason and unreason: it would 
tell of many acts of kindness, and many of heartless oppression : it 
would lay open to the world’s view the ramifications of the oddest 
society, the most mixed, intimate and discordant, 1o be found on 
the surface of this planet. How generously befriended, how zeal- 
ously helped by kindly men who are almost strangers, how pitilessly 
swindled, how stabbed in the back, or slyly pinched there — accord^- 
ing to the nature of the assailant — how wealthy with a transient 
half-sovereign, how poor with a liberal income, how robbed by the 
good Samaritan and succored by Barabbas, how buffeted and 
caressed is the young acolyte ! 

Adventures are doubtless to the adventurous, and there are many 
prosperous gentlemen now settled in literaiy pursuits who will be 
able to tell you with a clear conscience that this picture is absurdly 
overdrawn, and that seme of its lines have no business on the can- 
vas at all. No publisher ever robbed, no publisher ever succored 
them. They were never open to that sort of robbery nor stood in 
need of that sort of succor. No anonymous enemy ever stabbed 
them; no prosperous pitying brother artist ever had need to beg of 


125 


- ^^THE WAY OP THE WORLD/’ 

them an unnecessary helping hand, and to pay ready money for the 
■work accomplished. They never tramped hopeless Fleet Street 
empty in purse and stomach, nor held absurd high jinks with their 
last thirty shillings. When they speak of literary London thej'' have 
no vision of a marble-topped counter set out with decanters and 
glasses, or of an upper room in a stuffy old public-house in the 
Strand. Their literary world is as respectable as a church, and as 
dull as a rainy bank holiday. 

Mr. Maddox was of the adventurous turn, and met with many ad- 
ventures. He loved books with all his soul, and had an unaffected 
passion for pictures and music and the drama. He haunted the 
theaters and the drinking bars where actors met, and he scraped ac- 
quaintance with Clancarty and Dexter, and Harfoid and MacGuffoe:, 
who all liked the lad more or less, and fancied that good things would 
come out of him. The boy himself was enthusiastically delighted at 
the opportunity of rubbing shoulders with these eminent people. Ho 
did not measure them by himself, as Mr. Amelia did, but was sim- 
ply and solely charmed by his own good fortune in being allowed to 
look at them and talk to them. By nature he was freehanded and 
confiding, and it was scarcely to be hoped that a young man with 
these qualities would be spared by the lean and ever-hungry harpies 
who help to peof)le Bohemia just as the}'^ help to people other places. 

He had not meant to deceive Mr. Amelia when he had spoken of 
the money which had fallen to him, and had yet done so, for the 
small man looked on him as being settled beyond the need of labor, 
though Maddox saw well enough that in a year or two he must do 
something for his bread, and only chose to take a holiday and look 
about him before settling down. His new made friends nominated 
him for one or two clubs, literary and theatrical, and he began to 
see intimately into at least a part of the artistic life of London. The 
Saturday house dinner at the Cannibals or the Footlights was. to his 
mind, a feast for the gods— not because the table was spread 
with any great luxury, but because he met at these entertain- 
ments actors and artists, and men of letters whose names had been 
familiar as household words to him all his life long — the great Mont- 
gomery Bassett, king of heavy tragedj’’ ; and the greater Bonald 
Marsh, author of a dozen poetical comedies; and painters and 
flautists and fiddlers and journalists out of number — all the jolliest 
fellows in the world and full of amiability. 

He had taken chambers in one of the Inns of Court, and from his 
sitting room would arise sounds of melody or revelry at the wildest 
hours, for he began to be cunning in the purchase of whiskies, and 
his natural aptitude for the concoction of seductive and potent 
drinks grew into a real power by force of practice, and these are 
faculties which lead to the easy formation of friendships. Students 
of medicine and unfledged barristers assisted at these symposia, and 
sometimes the whole wild crowd would go out in the gray hours of 
morning and spin tops along the Strand, and be good humoredly 
cautioned by members of the Metropolitan Police Force, who after 
all were human, and could be persuaded to sip milk and whisky 
from a traveling flask in sheltered byways. 

In spite of all this there would be days and days of hard study at 
the Museum Library or elsewhere, and long nights of hard writing 


126 ‘"THE WAY OF THE WOELD.’^ 

at the play or tlie poem or the critical essay which happened to be 
upon the anvil at the momerTt, for Maddox gave himself to various 
pursuits and loved them all. Now and then he would encounter 
Mr. Amelia, who would listen with lofty scorn to the story of his 
revels. Mr. Amelia had never reveled in his life, and had no sym- 
pathy with revelers. A. man’s business in this world, according to 
Mr. Amelia, was to Get On, and to get on immediately. It was not 
his moral sense which spoke against the mirth and madness of the 
younger man’s career (though it is more than likely that he thought 
it was), but that curuus love of Respectability which with some men 
excuses the absence of all things that are kindly and generous. W e 
do not teach our youth this lesson — it might be unwholesome if they 
learned it too early- -but it is not altogether a bad thing to have one 
field sown with wild oats. Sow no henbane, glad youth, no wicked 
nightshade, a mandrake which shall be only roote'd up with groans 
as of the parting spirit. Live honestly, and if thou hast follies let 
them be such as thou canst laugh as well as sigh over in later years. 
Rejoice in thy youth — but — remember! 

It always came naturally to Mr. Amelia to feel important, and, as 
a London journalist, he would take airs with his late junior, and 
would advise him as to the path to success. 

“ There is a style about a London man’s work,” says the little 
man, ” which you never see in the provinces. You have to work 
in London before you get it. 1 hope you are doing something.” 

“1 heard a lecture of Tyndall’s last night,” said Maddox with 
half a blush, and an air of uneasy waggery. ” He was showing us, 
among other things, how a surface might be prepared to absorb light 
in the daytime and give it oT at night. To find that prepared object 
soaking in the sunlight wouldn’t convey any very distinct idea of 
industry, would it?” 

“Ah!” said Mr. Amelia, as if he pecked at this simile with a 
vocal hatchet, “ and when do you expect your right time of lumi- 
nosity to arrive?” 

“ It’ll have to be pretty dark before I begin to glimmer, eh?” said 
Maddox with a grin. “ Well, it isn’t all otium sine dignitate even 
with me. 1 really am at work in a way. I go about a good deal 
and see people, and talk and watch and listen and try to learn. 
Books are not everything. They are a good preparation for the 
study of the world, and they tell you what to look for and how to 
understand things when you see ’em. They are a sort of alphabet, 
but the world itself is your real library.” 

“You have read books a good deal?” said Mr. Amelia with a 
little pang of envy. “ What have you read?” 

“All sorts,” said Maddox; “except Theology and the Exact 
Sciences and Jurisprudence, and that kind of rot. Poetry, History, 
Fiction, Drama, Travel, Criticism— they’re the works I like.” 

“ There’s no royal way to a knowledge of English literature, I 
suppose?” said the little man, looking keenly across at his com- 
panion. “ No short cut?” 

“Not that I know of,” answered Maddox. 

“Suppose, for instance,” said Mr. Amelia, “that a busy man 
wanted a condensation of English poetry— a sort of Liebig’s extract. 


^^THE WAY OF THE WOKLD.” 127 

There ought to be books of selections, where one could find a bird’s- 
eye view of the whole thing. Which would be the best to go to?” 

The youngster answered that, for wide reading and fine judgment, 
there was nothing known to him which would equal Leigh Hunt’s 
Fancy and Imagination, and that work, said he, was crowded with 
the nobler and more delicate beauties of English poetr5^ 

Mr. Amelia’s note-book came out of his pocket instanter, and he 
made a note of the title and the author’s name. 

“ Leigh?” he said, in his own crisp fashion. “ Leigh. How do 
you spell the name? Never heard of the man before.” 

‘‘ By Jove!” said Maddox, staring at him. 

When he and Mr. Amelia quarreled, as they did later on, the 
junior used to take a malicious pleasure in tracing the deep and 
curious knowledge of English poetry with which the little man be- 
came somewhat suddenly credited, to this one volume, and it was in- 
deed fine to see how briskly Mr. Amelia would go a hundred miles 
about to get a humorous twist out of a line for Milton, or Massin- 
ger, or Beaumont and Fletcher, or Sir Thomas Browne, or any other 
of the obscure people with whom he first made acquaintance in that 
rare and curious work. But of course, as any jourualist knows, 
that is a perfectly fair game — and if a writer were allowed to quote 
only from the books he had actually read, what would become of 
the literary learning which sparkles in so many of the reviews, and 
in so many leaders in the newspapers? 

This talk was held in that old resort in which Mr. Amelia had 
first looked upon Mr. O’Hanlon and had laid the foundations of his 
London fortune on the body of the useless Barney. Each of the 
young men was provided with a chop and a tankard, and one or 
two potatoes which had burst their jackets in excess of mealiness, 
and whilst they chatted and ate Harford dropped in and took a seat 
at their table. Now Harford, though he would bombard an enemy 
in conversation — and surely he could never have had a real enemy 
in his life — was the very pink of courtesy and kindness to such as 
were younger and smaller than himself, and no more dreamed of 
taking airs with these young men than he dreamed of poisoning 
them. He sat down and talked with such geniality and kindness, 
that the junior’s heart was moved to think of it, and in his own 
blunder-headed manner he expressed his feelings. 

“ They talk about the Republic of Letters,” he began, “ and, by 
Jove! that’s just what it is — a true Republic. You’re a graduate of 
Oxford, and 'a man of an old family, and you’ve held a commission 
in her Majesty’s service, and my father was a greengrocer and sold 
cabbages. And for all that here we are together as if we were social 
equals, just because you’re a captain and I’m a private in the great 
army of letters.” 

At this clumsy declaration Harford smiled, but an hour later 
when they were alone again Mr. Amelia took the junior to task 
about it. 

“ That,” he said, “ is a confession I would not make to any mim 
in the world.” 

” Well,” answered Maddox, “ I suppose it was a left-handed sort 
of thing to do.” 


128 ‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

What is it to him if your father was a greengrocer? Why do 
you thrust a fact like that at anybody?” 

“Oh!” cried the junior, “I’m not ashamed of the greengrocer. 
But it was a bit of an insult to Harford too, because it looked as if I 
should have expected him to value such a difierence — just as a fool 
might value it.” 

The two young men were very wide apart, and could scarcely be 
expected at any moment to reach to a complete understanding of 
each other. But they met and went on meeting, and by and by Mr, 
Amelia began to notice a curious change in the junior. He met him 
one day on, Fleet Street, and noticed that he was by no means so 
spruce as he had been, but had fallen back into something very like 
the aspect of the old Gallowbay days. His clothes were old and his 
boots were unblacked. What linen there was visible about him was 
disreputably yellow. He was just as cheerful as ever, and there 
was no change in his manner, 

“ What’s the matter with you?” asked Mr. Amelia with a certain 
smart disdain. 

“Nothing much,” said the junior. “Come and have a drink? 
I’ve just cashed a check from Blancarty, and 1 can afford to pay 
for a liquor.” 

“ Spend a penny on a shoeblack,” said Mr. Amelia. Maddox 
stared at him for a moment and then looked at his own boots and 
laughed. “You talked about having had a fortune left you some 
time ago,” added Mr. Amelia. “ Have you managed to get 
through it?” 

“Yes,” said Maddox, with a comic move. “ It’s gone — most of 
it. It’s a punishment for having mixed motives, I suppose. Do 
you know Whawler? No? Nice man Whawler was. Polished 
Christian gentleman. He’s gone to America now, I believe. He 
has most of my money with him, wherever he is. ” 

“ Who was he?” asked Mr. Amelia, with less sympathy than con- 
tempt. “ What was he?” 

“ Editor and proprietor of ‘ The Hill of Sion,’ ” replied Maddox. 
“ Ad exemplary publication, I assure you. It was full of Whawler, 
and Whawler was the best man 1 ever knew.” 

“ Well, how did he come to get hold of your money?” 

“ 1 used to meet him about at different places, the museum and 
elsewhere, and we got to be a little bit chummy in a sort of a way, 
and one day he got me into his office and showed me his books, and 
told me what a profit he was making, and how he was serving the 
Lord, and he got back to the subject later on. and being a born fool 
1 put nearly all I had into a partnership. And now, sir, Whawler 
is not, and ‘ The Hill of Sion ’ is not, and my fifteen hundred is 
not. At first it was a bit of a facer, but I’ve got two or three pounds 
left, and a lot of work done, and some of it accepted. It’ll do me 
no harm in the end. I shall have to work, that’s all. I should have 
had to begin sooner or later, and perhaps it’s better as it is.” 

“Ah!” said Mr. Amelia, “1 suppose you’d be pretty glad of 
regular work, if that’s how you stand?” 

“ I should,” returned the junior. “ That’s just what 1 want.” 

“Perhaps 1 may be able to find you a little later on,” said 


'^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 129 

Amelia. Let me know if you change your address. Good mom- 

iug.” 

He went with his bantam gait along the street. 

“ A. fool. and his money are soon parted,” he said to himself com- 
placently. ‘ ‘ It happens conveniently, since it had to happen. If 
the young man is anything like what Clancarty thinks him, he will 
he an accession to the staff, and he won’t cost much. But Clan- 
carty,” he added, with a passing touch of pity for human weak- 
ness, ” is one of those fools who think well of everybody.” 

To make no mystery about these reflections — they arose from 
the fact that Mr. Amelia had himself made an advance in life. But 
to get the story clear we must go back a little at this point. 


CHAPTER XVll. 

Whkn Mr. Amelia at the beginning of the parliamentary session 
took his place in the gallery of the House as chief of the staff of 
‘‘ The Constitution ” t& general sentiment was one of mingled in- 
dignation and surprise. Who was he, and what was he, and what 
had he done — all the seniors angrily demanded — that he should 
without trial and without experience be placed in a position so re- 
sponsible? They waited with a grim satisfaction and a savage cer- 
tainty in the realization of their own desires to see Mr. Amelia break 
down. They thought, every man of them, that Bannister, the 
manager of “ The Constitution,” who had hitherto passed as one of 
the shrewdest men in his line in London, had taken leave of his 
senses, and the staff the little man had come to command was on 
the verge of a resignation e7i masse. Gallery men whose salaries 
would not have been reduced by such a step wondered why it was 
not taken, and expressed their wonder openly, and the gentlemen 
who had positions to lose or to keep grinned under the infliction, 
but somehow bore it. There was a touch of conservatism about the 
gallery in those days. At one time it had been a close corporation, 
to be entered with much difficulty and after a considerable outside 
probation, and the feeling was all in favor of the old days. Men 
told each other how Mr. Amelia had failed in his original enterprise 
in parliamentary reporting, and in the smoking-room, the refresh- 
ment-room, and hi umber Eighteen, they read his earlier summaries 
of the proceedings of the House and derided their flippant smart- 
nesses and their occasional errors. 

The little man had much to endure if he had only known it, but 
the true secret of his composure was his own admirable opinion of 
himself. Sometimes for a solitaiy second people would break 
through the fence of egotism, but his robust self-opinion shouldered 
them out again. He was not easily touched by any sort of con- 
tempt, envy, or anger. 

” Sporran,” cried one oldster to another across the refreshment- 
room, ” you’re not half the man you used to be, you haven’t said a 
smart thing for a fortnight.” 

‘‘Gad, sir,” says Sporran, in answer, “I daren”t open my 
mouth. If 1 make a joke I’m bound to find its murdered remains 
ill next day’s ‘ Constitution. ’ 


130 ‘'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

There was a general laugh at this, but the laughter was not alto- 
gether good-humored. It was true that all was fish that came to Mr. 
Amelia’s net, and the Artful Dodger was no keener after a silk 
pocket-handkerchief than was the little man after a good saying. 
There was nothing he resented like a plagiarism when his own stores 
were plundered, but outside that one application of the rule he was 
opposed to copyright in ideas. 

“ The little wretch,” said Sporran, “ is a wet blanket and a kill- 
joy. 1 keep a guard upon my tongue with trembling, lest 1 should 
say something clever unawares. 1 have a perpetual nervous appre- 
hension that 1 should drop a good thing in forgetfulness of that 
diminutive pirate. It isn’t as if one could see him.” 

“ The soize of him,” said Mickey, “is the only charimm he has; if 
the man was as big as he’s little, yid see him everywhere.” 

“ Thank heaven for small mercies,” said the other, and at that in- 
stant Mr. Amelia entered and took a seat at one of the tables. 

The little man himself at least was sure of the wisdom of the 
choice which had so unexpectedly lifted him to a position of impor- 
tance, and was persuaded not merely of manager Bannister’s sanity^ 
but of the profundity of his knowledge of human nature, and the 
keenness of his discernment. To think well of one’s own person is 
not the worst or weakest adjunct to success, and Mr. Amelia felt 
more than equal to his work. Outsiders did not ask if all tlie smart 
things in his column of daily summary were his own, and the more 
he plundered the cleverer he seemed. It began to occur to him by 
and by that the wit of the gallery men was wearing out, and he 
found himself cast more and more upon his own resources. To tell 
the truth these were quite equal to the call upon them, and Bannister 
assured himself that the journalistic lucky bag had yielded a prize. 
Mr. Amelia was indefatigably industrious, always at his post, alert, 
perceptive, trim. He was bent upon success, and he knew no better 
way to it than never to sacrifice a chance. 

How a position of authority in the gallery of the House of Com- 
mons afl;ords opportunities the like of which are granted to few^ men 
of moderate social position. It is not necessary that a man in such 
a position should have been a gentleman to beg'in with, and as long 
as he has a tolerable manner nobody will be vexed with sjDecula- 
tions as to his origin. His duties led him a good deal to the lobby 
of the House, and he grew gradually into intimacy with a good 
many more or less infiuential "people. The very greatest he is not 
likely to meet, but the rank and file of the house are for the most 
part pleased to recognize him, and he comes into intercourse with 
the humbler members of the ministry of the day. Mr. Amelia had 
not been long in the gallery before members of the House began to. 
know him. The current satirists before his time had generally con- 
fined their satires to the country journals, reserving all their droll 
stories and sayings for the weekly letter of Our London Correspond- 
ent. But Mr. Amelia bearded the lion in his den, and though lie- 
made enemies he secured admirers. The House of Commons loves 
to laugh, and any man who can tickle it is sure of liking. He began 
to find himself a persona grata with some, and since he had a per- 
fect self -persuasion and was apt at the acquisition of tone and man.- 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 131 

ner he got on in his new circle with as much ease as he had done in 
the old ones. 

Jt was not long before he began to discern new sources of power 
and to draw upon them. He knew that it would serve him little to 
gild the refined gold of Disraeli — he found adulators enough already 
— to paint the Gladstonian lily would not merely have been a waste- 
ful and ridiculous excess, but was forbidden by the politics of the 
journal in whose interests Mr. Amelia took his nighlly seat in the 
gallery. But to single out some smaller man for praises might be 
a useful thing, and might lead to advantages until now unseen. It 
was necessaiy that the man should be small enough to feel the 
recognition of a Loudon daily and be proud of it and grateful for it. 
Or, if it were not quite needful that he should be grateful, it was at 
least a dne qua non that he should wish it to continue. There were 
two or three things to be considered in the choice to be made. The 
man must be small enough to be open to the sweet influences of 
public approval, and he must not be small enough to make the ap- 
proval seem overstrained or venal. He must be a man to whom the no- 
tice of a metropolitan journal — the phrase is bad, but handy — would 
be valuable, and yet who in ordinary circumstances would be very 
unlikely to insure it. He must not hold a social position so lofty as 
to be out of reach of this sort of flattery, and yet his social place 
must be considerably higher than JMr. Amelia’s, 

The little man cast about a long time and at length alighted upon 
one who combined all the characteristics he desired. 

The Irish party, though always eminently patriotic, had not reached 
to the red-hot devotion to Erin which has made it the admiration of 
the civilized world in these later days. Its ranks were led by the 
late Mr. Isaac Butt, a gentleman mamter in modo, who had no taste 
for the dagger and the bowl. The distressful country was still dis- 
tressful — heaven help her! — but her defenders were rather plaintive 
than wrathful, and more inclined to persuade than to threaten. In 
their ranks was Mr. Sylvanus Moriarty, a lean gray man with a lofty 
head and a sagacious face, a scholar and an orator, and a man who 
made his living, like Mr, Amelia himself, at the point of the pen. 
He had been called to the bar, but did not practice, being absorbed 
entirely in his political and literary wurk. At first Mr. Amelia was 
a good deal di4)Osed to make a target of this gentleman. Certain 
-outside peculiarities, as of manner and gesture, enlisted his peculiar 
sense of humor, but in a while he saw how much more useful Mr. 
Sylvanus Moriarty might be in another way. The readers of the 
parliamentary summary in “ The Constitution ” began to learn that 
there was no one in the Irish party so eloquent, none so scholarly, 
none so forcible yet so sensible and moderate as Moriarty. If I had 
the file of the journal before me I could cut out a half-hundred 
commendations of this gentleman’s oratory, of his modesty, his good 
■sense, his peculiar fitness to represent his country’s needs. Manager 
Bannister grew weary of this partisanship in a while, and put his 
veto on its continued expression, but before this had come about Mr. 
Amelia and Mr. Moriarty were fast friends, and the little man had 
sat with his little legs beneath the mahogany at his London cham- 
bers and had met there many people whom it was useful to know. 

Poor Kimberley had made his appearance in the House, and sat in 


132 '^THE WAY OF THE WOULD.” 

an obscure place below the gangway and under the Peers’ gallery,, 
choosing the bench nearest to the" wall. He was a large landed pro- 
orietor now, and when honorable and right honorable gentlemen 
talked of the landed interests he felt full of enthusiasm at the 
thought that he was supporting some kind of banner and making 
one in a fight for some sort of cause. At the bottom of his heart he 
was better disposed to the poor than he had ever been whilst he was 
one of them, but he was enlisted to check the tide of the democracy. 
It was all a little vague — perhaps it is all a little vague to a good 
many honorable gentlemen — but he was used to seeing things in a 
nebulous form, and in a little while he would grow so resolved at 
times under the influence of the oratory of gentlemen who represented 
the landed interest, that he would sing out “ Hear, hear!” with 
boldness when the cry was very loud and general and he could be 
sure that his voice could not be heard above the others. 

People liked him better than might have been expected. He was 
shy and of poor beginnings, and he was dolefully overdressed, but 
fhere was something about him which seemed to indicate a good 
heart. He trod on no man’s corns, even by accident, and there waa 
no representative of the people who was more amenable to the crack 
of the whip than he. Through what dreary hours would^ he sit, 
heroically awake, to keep a house, or to strengthen a division F 
Sometimes he would struggle against the sense of ennui (which, in 
spite of himself, would come with leaden force upon him), until the 
gathered energies of suppressed yawns became explosive, and he 
knew that he must gape or die. 

He and Mr. Amelia frequently met in the lobby of the House, and 
he always shook his little Gallowbay acquaintance by the hand, and 
isked shyly how he fared. Mr. Amelia rather patronized him, but 
Bolsover liked him none the less on that account. Mr. Amelia was 
•I clever young man who wrote for the daily papers, and Bolsover 
knew himself to be a dull man, who could do nothing in particular. 
Those little outside traits in the detection and descriptions of which 
.Mr. Amelia was so successful (after sedulous practice, without 
which how little real excellence there is in the world), offered them- 
selves plentifully in the person of Bolsover Kimberley, and the satirist 
had a score of observations on him, and was prepared for quite a 
little cascade of brilliant improvisations in case he ^ould ever do 
anything to bring himself into public notice. 

Kimberley, of course, knew next to nothing about journalism, and 
when somebody put into his mind the idea that it would be a great 
thing to own a newspaper and lead the minds of the people he nat- 
urally thought of Mr. Amelia. A warier man, or a man more know- 
ing, would probably have looked for an adviser of less limited ex- 
perience, but to Kimberley’s mind Mr. Amelia’s position was as 
exalted as it well could be, and the people who sat about the little 
millionaire were always chuckling at the summary in “ The Consti- 
tution,” and declaring it the smartest thing that had ever been seen. 
The people on the other side naturally thought the summary dull, 
but then Kimberley had but little familiar conversation with them. 
It came to pass thus, on a Wednesday afternoon, when Mr. Amelia 
had next to nothing to do, that Kimberley, finding him in the lobby,, 


^‘THE way of THE WORLD.’’ 


133 

timidly buttonlioled him, and led him to the tearoom, then altogether 
deserted, and laid bare his mind with respect to the new project. 

“ I want to ask your advice, Mr. Amelia,’^ he began, “about a 
thing that I’ve been thinking of.” Mr. Amelia, with his bolt up- 
right hair raying from his forehead, and his keen eyes taking com- 
plete possession of the millionaire, answered by, a jerky little nod of 
assent, and crossed his legs. “ 1 have been thinking,” said Kim- 
berley, “ of starting a newspaper — a weekly ncAvspaper.” 

“ Oh!” said Mr. Amelia. “ On wliat lines?” 

“Eh! oh, yes. What lines?” said Kimberley. “Of course. 
To be'sure. On what lines.” He was a little discomfited, not be- 
cause he was altogether unprepared, but out of native shyness. 

“Constitutional, 1 suppose,” said Mr. Amelia. “But literary? 
Social? Artistic?” 

“Yes,” said Kimberley, “1 should like it to be literary and 
artistic. 1 should like all the cleverest men to write for it.” 

Mr. Amelia nodded, and setting one elbow on his knee, fell to 
studying, his chin between his forefinger and thumb. 

“1 am very glad,” he said, after a moment of preoccupation, 
“ that you have mentioned this matter to me, Mr. Kimberley, be- 
cause I have had a scheme in my mind for some time past, and have 
only delayed putting it into execution for want of capital. I have ex- 
clusive sources of information, which 1 am naturally anxious to use 
to the best advantage, and I am inclined to think they would make 
the fortune of any newspaper which possessed them. The politics 
of the journal would be a matter of complete indifference.” 

“ i)h, dear, no,” cried Kimberley. 

“ Not to you, of course, Mr. Kimberley,” said the little man with 
a crackle in his voice, “or to me, but to the success of the paper. 
Whig or Tory might apply the information 1 speak of wfith equal 
success.” 

“ I did not quite understand you at first,” said Kimberley, much 
relieved. “ I couldn’t sacrifice my political convictions.” He blush- 
ed almost as painfully at the mention of his political convictions as 
he would have done at the thought of Lady Ella. It seemed such a 
presumption to have political convictions, or to lay claim to their 
ownership. But the Church, and the Land, and the Poor were all to 
be taken the best possible care of, and the Throne must be upheld. 

“ Precisely,” said Mr. Amelia. “ Have you thought of details?’’ 

“ Not yet,” said Bolsover. “ 1 shall want advice.” 

“ There are many things to be considered. Size, price, day of 
issue, and the title. The title is all important. Shall 1 think it over 
and prepare a scheme for your approval?” 

“Oh, thank you,” said Kimberley, “I should be very much 
obliged. Will you come and have a glass of wine?” 

Mr. Amelia declined the glass of wine, but set himself to consider 
ways and means with respect to the embryonic journal. This idea 
of Kimberley’s offered him a chance he had hardl}'- dared to dream 
of as yet. If he could get the conduct of a London weekly into his 
own hands what might it not be possible lo do? There would be 
no want of money with Kimberley at the back of the venture. A 
weekly journal? not a common penny weekly on the common penny 
weekly lines, but a journal with some pretension, a journal in whose 


134 


^'THE WAY OF^THE WORLD,’’ 

columns tliafsparkling fount wliicli flowed from Mr. Webling might 
have free current: a fashionable journal, a journal cynical and bright 
and bitter; a journal which should eclipse the “ Scourge ” itself. 
In the first flush of the triumph of this idea he saw himself writing 
the whole issue, week by w^eek, at special prices for each article. 
He knew that he was young and only half -tried, but he had never a 
doubt of his own capacities and scarcely ever thought that he was 
•fortunate. In point of fact, if an angel with a turn for }X)litics had 
appeared upon the floor of the house and had said, “ disthrone Dis- 
raeli,” and had indicated that gentleman’s successor jn the gallery, 
in the third box from the right hand side, he would have experienced 
no surprise apart from the shock his skepticism in regard to supernat- 
ural apparitions might receive. He would have found himself oust- 
ing the Royal George from the command of the British forces with 
no astonishment. There are some men fortune cannot abash by any 
gift she may send them, whose modest merit can claim all conceiv- 
able good luck as a right. Rerhaps there is no other happiness in 
the world which equals the happiness wdiich may spring from this 
condition of the mind. To be sure beyond cavil that there is no 
good thing you do not deserve! Surely, a happy state! 

“ I have taken the trouble,” said Amelia, when he and Bolsover 
next met, “ to get estimates from the paper merchant and the printer, 
and to prepare a complete table of probable expenditure and receipts. 
1 should advise the issue of a sixpenny weekly journal, with some- 
thing of the general aspect of the ‘ Scourge ’ — you know the 
‘ Scourge,’ Mr. Kimberley, devoted to politics, literature, society, the 
drama, and the fine arts, 1 should like to know what you think of 
the title, as 1 told you this day wedk the title is all important. What 
do 3 mu think of this?” 

Mr. Amelia drew from his breast pocket a folded sheet of stiff and 
tinted paper, and briskly opening it displayed to Kimberley a speci- 
men front page of an imaginary journal, at the head of which, in 
bold and open letters, stood the title, “ The Way of the World!” 

“Admirable!” said Kimberley; “admirable!” 

It was not in the least the sort of journal he had intended to 
found, but he liked the idea better than his own. He would promote 
the interests of the drama, and literature, and the Fine arts, and he 
got a real thrill out of the fancy. Surely it was something to set in 
motion a machine like this, which, for all he knew, might bring 
about a new era in the history of things in general. The poor mill- 
ionaire’s heart was open to these foolish hopes and generous influ- 
ences. “ The Way of the World ” was not the thing he had mehnt, 
but who was he to stand in the wa}'- of such an enterprise? Mr. 
Amelia’s figures had alread}'^ convinced him, and Mr. Amelia’s argu- 
ments in favor of the new venture carried him off his legs. 

“ Shall I set to work at once?” asked Mr. Amelia, thinking it 
safest to assume the head of affairs without delay. “ I must have a 
competent staff. ” 

“ Oh, yes. Please set to work at once,” said Kimberley. . “ Will 
you take a glass of wine?” , ^ 

Mr. Amelia accepted the proffered glass this time, and they drank 
together “ Prosperity lo the ‘ Way of the World.’ ” 


135 


f‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

Jack Clare, with his hands rammed deep into the pockets of life 
dressing-gown, and his legs stretched out in an attitude of forlorn 
abandonment, sat in an arm-chair in his own quarters, gloomily 
smoking. Between his outstretched feet lay a copy of the 
“ Scourge,” a copy much dog’s-eared and crumpled, and a week 
out of date. The young man had just read in its columns, for the 
five hundredth time perhaps, a paragraph announcing that a mar- 
riage had been arranged between Bolsover Kimberley, Esq., M.P., 
and Lady Ella Santerre, eldest daughter of the Earl of Windgall. 
‘‘The friends of the happy pair, ” said the paragraphist (for the 
“ Scourge ” was nothing if not biting), “ will be puzzled to decide 
on whom they should bestow their best congratulations — the lady or 
the gentleman.” 

Jack was unshaven and haggard, and his heart was full of loath- 
ing of the world. He had known all along the purpose for which 
that gilded little snob had been invited to Shouldershott Castle, and 
now the whole world knew it. It was natural he should think that 
the world took almost as keen an infbrest in the affair as he did, and 
he fancied Ella’s name in everybody’s mouth, coupled with a thou- 
sand flouts and sneers. And of course, since Ella had found it in 
her nature to do this thing, there was an end for ever and evermore 
of any chance for faith in woman. He had always thought of her 
as he might have thought of an angel, if he had had the fortune to 
know one. She had inspired him with a sort of wondering awe, 
and he haa praised God in his heart for so much goodness and 
beauty, even though they could never be his own. And after all 
she could sell herself for money. This profanation of herself was 
hideo'us to the lover’s mind, and there were moments when it drove 
him almost mad to think of it. 

To have been in love rapturously, devotedly, and blindly, actually 
to have worshiped, is a necessary part of a good man’s training. 
Clare was not a youn^ man who cared greatly to pry into the work- 
ings of his own spiritual organs, but he knew how much the 
thought of her had taught him, and what a change she had made in 
him. She had lifted him and purified him, and had seemed to him 
so ineffably good as well as beautiful, that to find her worthy of 
contempt was simply and merely horrible. To love her and to be 
condemned to live apart from her had been bitter, but he had en- 
dured and had schooled himself to endure for a lifetime. He could 
still love her and worship her, and think of her as the incarnation of 
all goodness. But now she asked him and compelled him to despise 
her. 

While he sat immersed in his own little fancies a knock came at 
the door. 

“ Come in,” cried Jack, and Lord Montacute entered. Clare sup- 
posed him to be his servant and made no motion. My lord regarded 
him for half a minute, and then advancing laid his hand upon his 
shoulder. 


136 "'the way of the world.” 

How are yon, Jack?” 

“ Oh, it’s you,” said Jack, stretching out his hand, and rising 
from his arm-chair. “ What brings you over here?” 

” 1 wondered why you didn’t answer my letter,” said Montacute, 
surveying his brother with brotherly eyes, and a little disturbed at 
what he saw in him. 

” Letter?” said Jack “ What letter?” 

“ This one,” said Montacute, stretching forth his hand and taking 
one from the mantelpiece. “ Why, you haven’t opened it.” 

‘‘ Perhaps that’s why I didn’t answer it,” said Jack, with a curi- 
ously unnatural and mirthless laugh. 

” Jack,” said Montacute, placing himself directly in front of his 
brother, “ what’s the matter with you?” 

” What’s the matter with you returned Jack. “You look as if 
you had just returned from a funeral.” 

“ 1 have,” said his lordship gravely. 

“ Great heavens!” cried Clare in sudden terror. “Whose?” It 
came into his mind that he had not opened a letter for a week, and 
in that time any terrible thing might have happened. 

“ Poor old Lady Yealdham was buried this morning,” said Mon- 
tacute, “ and I was asked to make a point of attending the funeral. 
So were you, and I wrote you pressing you to be there. The will 
was read after the funeral. T& each of her nephews except yourself 
she leaves one thousand pounds. You take the rest: fifteen thou- 
sand in the three per cents. The land’s entailed, of course, but if it 
had been hers to give you would have had it. You were always her 
favorite.” 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” said Jack, penitently. “ She was a 
good creature.” 

“ I’m sorry too,” said Montacute. “ It doesn’t look respectful to 
her memory. Here’s a pile of letters and none of them opened. 
It’s five o’clock in the evening and you’re not dressed nor even 
shaved. What’s the matter with you?” 

“ Nothing,” said Jack, doggedly. “ What should be the matter 
with me?” 

“ Jack, old fellow,” said his lordship, “ you must make a better 
fight than this.” Jack dropped back into his arm chair, and sat in 
the position in which Montacute had discovered him, “ You don’t 
want to wear your heart upon your sleeve for daws to peck at. ” To 
this Jack returned no answer except by a grunt wrhich might have 
expressed scorn of himself, his brother, or the world at large. “ Is 
that last week’s ‘Scourge’?” asked my lord, first touching the 
journal as it lay upon the hearthrug with his foot, and then stooping 
to lift it. “ Ah! I saw the announcement, and I don’t suppose any- 
body was much surprised at it. It’s only the way of the world after 
all.” 

“ Ah!” said Jack grimly, “ you’re a philosopher with a philoso- 
phy which adapts itself to circumstances. A year and a half ago it 
wasn’t such a very bad world, and now ‘ the way of the world ’ is 
a phrase which can measure anything.” 

“ What can’t be cured must be endured. Jack,” said Montacute. 

“ And little pitchers have long ears, and a good horse is never of 
a bad color, and a stitch in time saves nine. God bless your soul. 


‘'THE WAY OF THE WOKLD.” 137 

Charley,” said the sufferer, glowering at him from the arm-chair. 
‘‘ 1 know as many proverbs as you do, and they are all very apt at 
times. Any one of them will serve my turn just now as well as any 
other.” 

“It’s devilish hard. Jack,” said his lordship. “I know it is, 
hut—” 

“Look here, Charley,” said Jack, balancing the poker in one 
hand, “ I don’t want to talk about it.” 

“ All right,” said Montacute. “ But shake yourself up a bit. 1 
•won’t say another word. Now get a week’s leave and come up to 
town with me; it’ll do you good. 1 won’t bother you. Jack,” he 
added, in a tone made purposely commonplace. “ You’ll come, 
there’s a good fellow. I’ll go and speak to Heard about it. I saw 
your fellow leaning against the wall with his hands in his trousers 
pockets and looking as solemn as a crow. I’ll send him up to pack 
while 1 go and talk to Heard. Eh?” 

“ Very well,” said Jack, “ I’ll go. I have a bit of business to do- 
in London, and I’ll do it at once.” 

“ Good,” said his lordship, not knowing what he commended. 

The preliminaries were easily aiTanged, and Montacute and Clare 
ran up to town together that evening by the eight o’clock express 
from Bryanstowe. At first Montacute tried to talk, but succeeded 
in drawing nothing but an occasional answering grunt from Jack 
and gave it up. To-tvn reached. Jack went almost immediately to 
bed. He was up and out betimes in the morning, for when Monta- 
cute descended to breakfast and asked foi’ him he had already left 
the hotel. He was away nearly all day and returned late in the 
afternoon, still disposed to be extremely silent, but a trifle less 
gloomy in his manner than before. Next day the same thing oc- 
curred, and Montacute forbore to press him as to the manner in 
which he had spent his time. The third day of his stay in town was 
begun in the same fashion as the other two had been, but this time- 
he came back earlier, and opened his lips of his own accord. 

“ I’m going out to New Zealand, Charley,” he said, standing at 
the hotel window, and looking out upon the street. 

“ To New Zealand?” cried Montacute. , ’ 

“Yes,” returned Jack, quietly, without turning round, “ to New 
Zealand. I’ve bought land there: four thousand acres. When 
it’s all cleared and properly farmed and stocked, and all that — 1 
don’t know much about things yet, but Eve got a practical fellow 
to go out with me — it’ll be a very nice thing for one of your, younger 
sons to drop into. You’ll get married, you know, Charley, and the 
home ones can’t maintain a crowd in lordly splendor.” 

“ Y"ou abandon your career in the army?” cried Montacute. 

“ I sha’n’t go back,” his brother answered, still staring abstract' 
edly into the street, where the rain was falling and the few passen- 
gers 'were hurrying to and fro under glistening umbrellas. “I’ve 
written to ask for an extension of leave, and told Heard what I mean 
to do, and I’ve seen my agents and put everything into proper form.’^ 

“I don’t think you are well advised. Jack,” said his lordship. 
“ I don’t like it — it is too precipitate.” 

“ Oh, no,” said Jack, turning half round. “ It’s not at all prey 


138 ^'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

cipitate; I’ve been turning it over in my mind for a long time. It 
was the news that you brougtit me on Thursday that decided me.” 

” How about your mother?” said Montacute. 

“ Well,” said .lack, stroking his mustache, with an action which 
looked a trifle too unconcerned; “she stood it pretty well when I 
had to go out to be shot* at, and she won’t mind this so much. Ilis 
lip trembled, tor he was very soft and sore at heart, but his voice was 
steady. 

“ You don’t think about her like that,” said Montacute, warmly; 
“ why do you talk so?” 

“ Because,” said Jack, “ 1 have an elder brother who warned me 
not to wear my heart upon my sleeve. ” His voice began to tremble. 
“ Don’t say anything more just yet, Charley. I’ve acted for the best, 
I’ve seen what a curse the want of money can be to people in our 
position, and I think it is in my power to lift the curse ofl^ the heads 
of one family. Let me try to, anyhow. And the more 1 look at it 
the more I see that an idle aristocracy can’t hope to prosper, or to 
keep its place in the estimation of the world. You’re all right, you 
know, Charley, you’re a legislator, and a landlord, and you earn your 
living pretty fairly. ” 

“ A soldier’s not an idler,” said Montacute. 

“ No,” Jack assented. “But he’s not a producer. When you 
want to weigh the value of two things you ask yourself which you 
could most safely or easily dispense with. If ev^ery soldier in the 
world turned agriculturist the world would only benefit by it; but, 
if all the agriculturists turned soldiers, there vrould be a little trouble 
to find breadstufls. I beat my sword into a plowshare and my spear 
into a reaping-hook, and, so far as a fellow like me can affect the 
world at all, the world’s the better for it.” 

“ Jack,” said his lordship, with a manner of some perplexity, “ if 
these radical and revolutionary ideas had had a natural growth in 
your mind 1 should have been surprised. But they have been un- 
naturally forced. You confuse your personal experience with the 
facts of political economy.” 

“ Political economy and personal experience,” said Jack, “ should 
always be kept apart. A system of political economy founded on 
personal experience would be sure to adapt itself to human needs in 
the long run, and the purpose of the gentleman who originated the 
lovable science would be brought to naught. ’ ’ 

“ And now,” saidmy lord, “ you know you’re talking nonsense.” 

“ Was 1?” returned Clare. “ 1 thought I was. 1 won’t talk non- 
sense any more, Charley.” He turned from the window and, taking 
oije or two steps into the center of the room, he faced his brother. 
“1 am not going away on politico -economic grounds, Charley. I 
can’t stay in England. I can’t bear it. And the life’s too idle for 
me. If there were only a chance of hearing boot and saddle in the 
field again, I’d stop. But there isn’t, and I must find work some- 
how and somewhere. 1 don’t want to be merely harmless. 1 want 
to be of some use in the world, as w^ell as to bear the burden of my 
own life. There— that’s enough. I’m not going to grumble. I’ve 
got no right to be jolly, any more than other people. You’ll tell 
mother, won’t you? And then 1 can go down and say ^Good-by,’ 
and spend a day or two with her.” 


' ‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 139 ^ 

“You used not to be headstrong,” said his lordship mournfully. 

“ Go down and see your mother, Jack, and talk the thing over with 
her, and see if she can’t persuade you to stay.” 

“ That’s just what 1 want to avoid,” said Jack. “ It’s all settled. 
The land’s bought, and I’ve made arrangements to sell out, and 
engaged a practical man to go with me.” 

“ The land can be sold again, and the arrangement reconsidered, 
and the man paid tor. his disappointment.” 

“ None of those things will happen,” said Jack, and Montacute 
saw there and then that he was unshakable, but in spite of that dis- 
covery could not at once tor bear to urge him. "W hen he had wasted 
all the arguments he could think of the intending emigrant offered 
him a last word. “ Gk> down and break it to our mother, Charley. 
Don’t write it, but let her know by word of mouth. And when 

f ou’ye told her i’ll come down and see her. Only let her know that 
’m quite unable to change my mind.” 

“Come down with me,” returned Montacute. “ She will be 
longing to see you from the moment she gets the news.” 

“ If you think it best,” said Jack, “ 1 will go down with you.” 

It was settled so, and Montacute having no actual business in 
town, and Jack’s being for the moment finished, they went back 
next day. The mother received the news with less surprise and 
tremor than might have been expected, and when Jack followed his 
brother she gave him her blessing and bade him God-speed, with 
the tears in her eyes to be sure, for she was a mother and was parting 
from a son she loved, but with a cheerful courage too. And some- 
how, as, when Jack sat beside her, she rose and placed her hands on 
his head and blessed him, it befell that the youngster dropped upon 
both knees and suddenly caught her hands in his and kissed them 
with not unmanly tears. 

“ I’m sorry to leave you,” he said, with a catch in his voice. 

“ But I can’t help it, mother. 1 must go.” 

Yes, you must go, dear,” she answered, with a tugging at her 
own heart. But she was a brave woman and a Christian, "and she 
had suffered greatly already, and she knew all Jack’s story. She 
spoke her next words with some fear, but she had thought about 
them and had resolved upon them. “ You must go, but there is one 
thing you must not do, dear.” 

“ What is that?” asked Jack, kissing her hands again and looking 
up at her. “ Tell me, and 1 won’t do it.” 

She drew gently at his hands and he arose to his feet and sat down 
beside her. 

“You are very bitter against Ella,” said her ladyship, “ and you 
think you have wasted your love on a girl who has proved herself 
quite unworthy of it. ’ ’ Jack rose and began to walk about the room.' 

“ You are wise to go away, but you must not go away imbittered 
by a thought like that, to grow into a cynic and a misanthrope. You 
are wise enough and strong enough to bear what 1 have to tell you. 
Ella will marry Mr. Kimberley because it is the only way to save her 
father from bankruptcy, but she will not marry him out of any vul- 
gar love of money. It is a noble sacrifice and not an ignoble one as 
you have fancied. 1 have seen, her and spoken to her, and she has 
told me everything. You may^'think of her without bitterness.” 


140 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’/ 

“ My best way,” said Jack, with a great effort to speak calmly, 

is not to think of her at all.” 

“ That would be a poor way,” said her ladyship, following him 
to lay a hand upon his shoulder. ” It is not a light thing, dear, to 
have set all your affections on one thing, and 1 shall never have to 
think so poorly of you as to fancy that you forget it. You Will be a 
better man for it. Grief is hard to bear, but it has ita uses. ^ And 
you mustn’t scorn a girl because she has done her duty. Think of 
her gently, dear, like a sister, or like a saint in heaven.” 

When her ladyship was a little moved there was always the faint- 
est musical tone of Irish in her voice, and it trembledr there now. 

Jack shook his head doggedly. 

Don’t talk about it, rnother It’s harder than you think it is. ” 
It’s no harder than 1 know it to be,” said her ladyship, ” for 1 
have gone through it all. But there is such a thing as duly in the 
world, and I had to do mine, and you have to do yoiirs, and Ella has 
to do hers. It breaks your hearts to begin with, but you can look 
back on your own suffering gladly.” 

” She won’t break her heart, ” said Jack, not scornfully or angrily, 
but like one who is half dead with weariness. 

” She has suffered more than you have,” said his mother. “ She 
loved you as much as you loved her, but she saw her duty and she 
took it.” 

” It isn’t my idea of duty,” Jack replied, speaking as wearily as 
before. 

‘ ‘ No, ” said her ladyship. “You thought it her duty to be happy. 
She thought it her duty to save her father. ” 

“It’s easy for a heart,” said Jack, miserably, “ to persuade itself 
that it doesn’t care about a big estate and a house in town.” 

“ I can read a girl’s heart,” her ladyship answered. “ I am not 
holding out any foolish hopes to you. An}’^ new hope would be quite ‘ 
desperate, and I would never have breathed a word of this before 
she was engaged to Mr. Kimberley.” Lady Montacute was a Chris- 
tian, but she was Lady Montacute, and had been taught her own way 
of looking at things by many tutors. There are truths in Debrett as 
well as in Holy Writ, and the sins of the fathers are nowhere more 
visited upon the children than when the fathers sin by making improvi- 
dent marriages. “ I tell it you now,” she went on, “ because I do not 
want to have you so unhappy as you would be if you went away 
with those bitter notions in your mind. Think of her as doing a 
harsh duty for duty’s sake, and try to rule your own life, dear, by 
the same spirit. You may not be happy, but you will be better than 
happy.” 

If this conversation had never been held, this story would have 
had a different termination, and Clare’s character and way of think- 
ing would certainly have taken a different turn. It happened that 
Messrs. Begg, Batter, and Bagg, had been solicitors to the late Lord 
Yealdham, as to most other people of consequence in the county, and 
it was to their offices that Jack had to betake himself when he went 
to make arrangements about the money which had nearly fallen into 
his hands. Our lives are always ready to swing into new grooves 
and the slightest chance may make or mar a fortune. At the 
moment when Jack sauntered drearily down the street toward the 


''THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 141 

oflQces of the lawyers, the Earl of 'Windgall was closeted with the 
senior partner, and his carriage stood in the street without. Clare 
knew it at a glance, but gave it no second glance till he reached the 
gate. Then he turned and his heart seemed to stand still, as his eyes 
met those of Lady Ella, who sat in the carriage awaiting her fa- 
ther’s return. Her fan spoke more to him than all the forces of 
reason and rhetoric combined could have told him in an hour. 

He raised his hat, and but for a slight and scarcely perceptible 
motion of her hand toward him, would have passed by with that 
mere salute. But seeing that, he advanced, hat in hand. 

“ 1 am glad to have seen you to say good-bj^” he said, steadily, 
though his face was as pale as death. ‘ ‘ I am going to New Zealand. 
I am afraid that 1 shall not be able to see you again before I go.’' 

She took his extended hand and said, 

“Good-by. 1 hope you will be happy. ” 

It was a hard fight for composure on both sides, but at that 
moment Windgall appeared. He saluted Clare coldly with a remark 
About the weather, and mounting, drove awaj’’. 

“Was my mother right?’’ Jack asked himself. “God knows. 
Heaven help her. She looks unhappy. Why should 1 be glad to 
think that she is unhappy?’’ 


CHAPTER XIX. 

Now it is not to be supposed that a good girl like Alice Santerre, 
And'a girl who was not only good by nature but blessed with wit and 
some faculty of penetration, could miss the fact that her sister was 
in sore trouble. Nor is it to be supposed that she failed to observe 
the remarkable change which came over her father’s manner toward 
his eldest daughter. Windgall had grown singularly tender in his 
treatment of Ella, and whilst he would watch her with a kind of 
pitying tenderness when she was unaware of him, would treat her 
with a surprising deference in conversation. This went on for a day 
■or two, and puzzled the young lady a great deal. 

“ There is something the matter,” she said to herself, “ and 1 am 
not to know. Y ery well, I shall not pry into any secrets they may 
please to have from me. Perhaps they may see fit by and by to take 
me into their confidence. You are only a child as yet, my dear,” 
she concluded with demure serenity. 

The motives of the most charming young ladies are as mixed as 
those of other people, and love and pity and curiosity alike moved 
her, and amongst them operated so strongly that she forgot her 
pride. * 

It was October, but the season had been mild, and as yet no high 
winds had arisen to strip the trees^of their hectic splendors. Ella 
and Alice were walking in'the park together. The air was still, and 
the sun was shining with unusual warmth and geniality for the time 
of year. The turf was dry and springy, and the two girls left the 
pathway and took their road across the grass. They were a pretty 
sight, and made a pretty contrast to each other. The grief the elder 
carried had paled her cheek, but the resolution with which she had 
set herself to the task gave her a new decision and majesty. Hei’ 


142 ''THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

beautiful face was at once gentler and loftier in expression than it 
had been, the lips were growing into a look of habitual resolve, but 
the eyes were infinitely soft and sweet. There are faces which are 
made beautiful by trouble because of the nobility of heart which 
models them, and" there ai e some faces, beautiful to begin with, 
which under the influence of sorrow grow almost angelic. 

- Alice was of smaller stature than her sister, and her hair and eyes 
were not black as Ella’s were, but brown. There was a spice of 
mockery and satire in her face which gave it piquancy, but this 

' expression was not pronounced enough to obscure the genuine good- 
ness of heart which shone revealed there. 

“ What a sad time autumn is!” said the younger girl, as their 
feet rustled through the dead leaves which lay at the foot of an 
enormous elm. ” Look!” A leaf came fluttering slowly downward, 

'and she caught it in her little gloved hand. ' ‘ This is quite green 
and strong. I can see no flaw in it. It isn’t only the sere and yel- 

- low leaves that fall. This leaf is quite robust and young-looking. I 
wonder if it thought it had a long lease of life to come.” 

. “Do you think autumn sad?” asked Ella. “It is only a proph- 
ecy of spring.” 

“ When 1 was quite a little creature,” said Alice, “ ever so small, 
1 saw one red leaf hanging on a tree with green buds all round it. It 
was April, and that wretched red leaf had hung there through all 
the winter, so that it might sneer at the springtime and show all tfle 
green buds what they w^ere bound to come to. 1 felt, Ella, as if 1 
hated it, and 1 tried to climb the tree to pull it down. Miss Wilton 
caught me, and was ‘dreadfully angry. What a dear delightful 
cross old thing she was, and how she loved a title. ‘ W ill yOu kind- 
ly remember, ’ she said in that frosty way of hers, ‘ that you are a 
lady, and will you kindly try to bear in mind that your father is an 
earl?’ JS'ot even a smile, Ella, for that remembrance?” 

“ Pray forgive me, dear ” said Ella, looking round at her, “ for 
being so absent-minded. W’hat was the remembrance?” 

She smiled there, but the smile, though so sweet, was so mournful 
that Alice impetuously caught her hand and brought her footsteps 
to a halt. 

“Ella,” she said, “what makes you so changed? What makes 
you so absent-minded? What makes you so— so dejected? Ko, 
dejected is not the word, but you make me w'ant to take you up and 
nurse you if it were not that I could punish you for being so secret 
about it. What is it, dear?” 

“ Perhaps,” said Ella, “ 1 am a little more thoughtful and serious 
than I used to be. ” 

“ No, no,” said Alice, with a pretty and affectionate impatience. 
“ It isn’t that. 1 haven’t been able to look at you for these past 
three days without wanting to kiss you and put my arms round your 
neck and say, ‘ You poor dear, tell me your troubles and let me com- 
fort you.’ Only,” she continued, with a sudden air of pique, “ you 
chose to be so reserved and unsisterly that my pride wouldn’t allow 
me to do anything of the sort. ” 

“Alice,” said Ella, with a little show of authority, “ you must 
dismiss this nonsense from your mind. 1 am not going to have any 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WOELD.’^ 143 

secrets from you. 1 asked you to walk this afternoon in order to 
tell you’something. I am going to be married. ” 

It cost a little effort to make this confession at the moment. It 
never could have been easy since the marriage was so plainly a sale 
on the one hand, and a purchase on the other, and since she was so 
sure to be unhappy in it. Now that Alice had charged her with 
being in trouble, it was harder than ever. But it was her way to be 
courageous, and since her sister suspected the existence of a grief in 
her mind, and since she herself desired above all things to disarm 
that suspicion, the best and safest way seemed to be at once to han- 
dle the miseiy itself as if it were altogether foreign to the theme 
Alice had chosen and could have no possible connection with it. 

“ To be married,” cried Alice. “Oh, Ella, does papa know of it?” 

“ My dear,” answered Ella with a smile, “ when did you imbibe 
such dreadful fancies? Of course he knows of it,” 

“Who is it?” asked Alice, putting an arm through Ella’s, and 
walking slowl}’’ in a confidential attitude. 

“ It is Mr. Kimberley,” said Ella simply. 

Alice withdrew her arm, and, stopping short in her walk, clasped 
her hands together with an expression of amazement, almost of hor- 
ror, 

“ Ella!” The gesture and the tone were unmistakable. “ Oh,” 
■cried the girl, wringing her gloved hands together, “this was my 
fault. But how could 1 know — how could 1 guess — that he was 
speaking of you?” 

This was certainly a discouraging' reception for a pious fraud to 
meet with. 

“ Your fault,” said Ella, speaking as steadily as she could. 

“ My fault,” answered Alice half distractedly, “ Yes, it was my 
fault. He spoke to me one night upon the lawn, and told me that 
when he was poor he had had the audacity to fall in love with a 
lady, and that since he had con\,e into his fortune, he had seen her 
and met her often, and was verj’^ unhappy. And 1 advised him to 
go straight to the lady, whoever she might be, and speak out what 
was in his mind.” 

“ It was a very happy thing, dear, that you did so,” and upon 
this Alice ceased to wring her hands, and, falling uix)n her sister, 
began to caress her and to kiss her in a manner almost hysterical. 

“ This is for papa’s sake,” she said. “ You have done it ill for 
his sake because he has been poor and in debt. ” 

Well, it would scarcely be honest to deny this, and she could 
scarcely hope that the denial would be believed. 

“It was my duty to make a good marriage for his sake if I 
could,” said Ella. “Mr. Kimberley has already placed ninety 
thousand pounds in his hands, and now papa has not a debt in the 
world.” 

“ Oh, this wretched money!” cried Alice, “ Ella, you ought not 
do have thrown yourself away on a man like that.” 

“ He is not a bad man,” Ella answered, feeling herself enforced 
to make the best of things. “And you have told me many times 
how refined and gentle a heart he has.” 

Alice responded with a kind of quiet desperation which would, in 


144 ^^THE WAY OF THE WOKLD.’^ 

contrast with her words, have been altogether comic but that the 
matter was so serious to them both. 

“ Well, he loves you; you will have anything you like to ask him 
for.” 

lit was no comfort to Ella to think that Kimberley loved her. If 
he had not loved her and had not asked her to marry him she could 
have liked him well enough. And now the harmless little man was 
a crawling horror to her. When he kissed her hand she had curdled 
at him. Circumstance, when she gave Kimberley money, had cer- 
tainly dealt hard measure to two people. 

“ He. has improved very much,” said Alice, trying to undo the 
effect of her reception of Ella’s news. “ When we knew him first 
he was very awkward and shy, and seemed to be unused to every- 
thing. He has really improved, quite wonderfully. ” 

Kimberley’s improvement was a matter on which Ella might or 
might not congratulate herself personally, but it could not be an 
agreeable subject of conversation for her. The whole theme bristled 
with thorns. To touch any part of it was to be wounded, and yet 
it had been impossible to ignore it. 

The girls extended their walk somewhat beyond the common lim- 
its, and at their return found Kimberley at the castle. Alice, at 
least, had been used to receive him gayly, and she alone among all 
the people he had met in his new sphere had seemed able to put him 
completely at his ease. The presence of Ella had always intoxicated 
him, and that not with happiness, but with a terrible compound 
feeling of awe and rapturous misery which evaded analysis or de- 
scription. He was always going to be blessed in her presence, hi& 
heart would flutter and his head would ache at the mere thought of 
the bliss of meeting her and breathing the same air with her, and 
then the very intensity of his worship would shrivel his hopes ta 
nothing and he would sit silent, burning and freezing with shame, 
simple and compound, probably the unhappiest little man in Great 
Britain. All the experience he had in this respect went for nothing. 
He would count the hours which separated him from her society 
with just the same burning impatience when next tliey parted, and 
when next they met would sit in the same impotent silence of bash- 
ful misery. At these times Alice had been of use to him; and if it 
had been impossible to set him altogether at his ease, had alleviated 
his sufferings and brought them within the bounds of endurance. 
And now, to his terror and dismay he found that his ally had desert- 
ed him. He discerned this at a glance, and indeed might be said 
almost to feel it, at the moment she entered the room. A cold and 
mutilated salute was all she gave him, though perhaps if sho had 
known the cruel sinking at the heart which followed her reception 
of him she would have pitied him. 

• When the earthen pipkin essayed to sail down stream ^vith the 
pipkins of metal, one touch was enough to break and sink it, and 
the unequally matched companions parted company for ever. But 
when the Kimberley pipkin found itself in this exalted company it 
encountered a misfortune infinitely less sufferable, because it hap- 
pened to be woven of the most sensitive heart fibers, and was liable 
to the most painful bruises on the slightest contact. 

Fortunately for Kimberley and his self-possession, the musical 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 145 

thunder of the gong rolled through the house at this moment, and 
the hour afforded for dressing came as a welcome relief. Eager as^ 
he was to face his fiancee, he lingered until the last minute before 
he forced himself to descend the stairs. The dinner was very silent 
and uneventful, and he was glad, as the others were, when it was 
over. Windgall was scarcely less keenly sensitive to Alice's altered 
demeanor than Kimberley himself, and he determined at the earliest, 
opportunity to take her to task about it. An appeal to her generosity 
and affection was not likely to be unsuccessful. 

“ Kimberley,” said the earl, when each of them had settled down 
with his coffee and cigar. “About those papers! Believe me, I 
appreciate the delicacy with which they were offered, and the mo- 
tives which dictated their collection. 'But 1 want to ask you now 
what I am to do with them. ’ ’ 

“You had better throw them into the fire, my lord,” said Kim- 
berley, blushing all over, “ and say no more about them.” 

“ 1 don’t see my way to that, ” said Windgall, laying down his 
cigar and bending impressively toward his guest. “ So far as humjAi 
foresight goes there is not likely to be any breach of the engagement 
upon which we have entered.” Kimberley began to pant a little in 
his breathing, and the palms of his hands were wet with nervous 
perspiration, but the earl’s next words relieved him. “ We are all 
mortal, Kimberley. Heaven forbid it! but you might die. Nobody 
knows what is to happen. Ella herself might not live.” 

“ Don’t!” cried Kimberley. “ Pray don’t talk of such thingcs.”" 

“My dear Kiniberley,” returned Windgall, “they have to be 
spoken of. Ninety thousand pounds is a very serious sum of 
money, and if — if — I see no fear of it, I am glad to say, but — if 
the engagement for any reason at present unforeseen were not ful- 
filled 1 could not retain it.” 

“ My lord,” said Kimberley, “ I shall be very much obliged in- 
deed if you will allow that matter to be entirely forgotten. 1 shall 
be immensely relieved. 1 shall, upon my honor.” 

It was natural that in a matter of so much importance to himself 
his lordship should be anxious that there should be no ambiguity. 

“ It would be absurd enough in me to pretend any disguise to 
you,” he said, with a laugh which he did his best to make geniah 
‘ ‘ I suppose I am the poorest peer in England. But even to a poor 
man there are certain sentiments which are more valuable than 
money. From a relative I can accept this gift. From a friend I 
scarcely feel that 1 can take it. The papers would make a noble 
bonfire for the wedding day I must admit.” 

“ Then let them makeabonfire for the wedding day,” cried Kim- 
berley, to whom this suggestion seemed of happy omen. “Butin 
any case, my lord, I have washed my hands of them. They are 
not mine, but yours. In any case, my lord, they would have been 
destroyed. If things hadn’t happened as they have, and if you had 
given them to me back again, I should have gone away and burned 
them. Apart from— apart from Lady Ella, my lord, you have been 
very kind to me, and I am sure that I couldn’t have spent the 
money so as to get so much pleasure out of it any other way.” 

Windgall stretched out his hand and the little millionaire accepted it. 

“ By gad!” said his lordship to himself, “ I might have found a. 


146 ' ^'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

worse son-in-law, even if he were as poor as 1 am. A noble-hearted 
little fellow.” 

He qualified the reflection a moment later, and remembered that 
if Kimberley had been poor he would have had as much chance of 
marrying Ella as of being elected to the British throne; but’ after 
all, generosity is a virtue, and he was in a position to appreciate it. 

‘‘Very well then, Kimberley,” he said aloud, ‘‘I’ll keep the 
papers, and we’ll burn them in secret on the wedding day.” 

The conversation turned to other topics, but Kimberle}'^ was obvi- 
ously distrait, and Windgall, taking the hint his manner offered, led 
the way to the drawing-room, where Ella and Ali(;e sat in listless 
silence. And here again the old play was played, and Kimberley 
had plunged out of the frying pan of expectation into the fire of 
realiz;ation. He sat in wretched constraint or dropped monosybabic 
answeis to Windgall’s forced speeches, until the earl, by the merest 
motion of the eyebrows, and an almost imperceptible backward 
motion of the head, invited Alice to his side, and then with an ad- 
mirable air of accident led her to the far eud of the room, where he 
signed her to the piano. Alice burned within, but it was impossible 
to disobey just then. She meditated rebellion, and was determined 
that if she could in any way save Ella from this unhappy marriage 
she would do it. But this was not the time for a display, and she 
sat with her back to the engaged pair and set her fingers on the 
keys, whilst Windgall sat down at a table at a distance, and became 
surprisingly absorbed in the examination of the Liber Studiorum of 
Turner. 

The music — Alice was playing a valse which breathed, like so 
many compositions of its tribe, a spirit of voluptuous mournfulness 
— stirred Kimberley curiously, and the presence of the woman he 
loved so dearly awoke him for once to a timid courage. Scarcely 
knowing what he did he rose and took his stand near her, and the 
fingers of both hands closed desperately on the light rail of a gilded 
chair. 

‘‘ Lady Ella,” he said, and his own voice startled him so much 
that for a moment he was choked and could say no more. She 
looked up, and her dark eyes seemed fathomless. He had never 
dared to be so alone with her before, and there was a sort of terror 
of his own temerity upon him. But suddenl}^ — for he was a man 
after all, though a little one— his passion and his happy fortune 
seemed to lift him out of himself, and he triumphed over his fears. 
“ Lady Ella,” he began again, ” 1 have never had a chance till now 
to thank you for the honor you have done me. ' I can scarcely be- 
lieve that 1 am not in a dream. ’ ’ 

‘‘Oh!” thought Ella, “'if 1 could only wake from mine!” But 
Kimberley was not to know this, and he went on. 

“ I’m not worthy to know you. 1 know that. But you have over- 
looked all that, and I haven’t any right to remind you of it. And 1 
shall only live for one thing, and that will be to make you happy.” 

Ella was silent, and Alice at this moment turned her head and 
saw Kimberley leaning tow^ard her sister like a lover. With a crash 
that startled all her audience she plunged clean from the slow 
voluptuous cadence of the unfinished valse into some firework imi- 
tation of a battle. She was a brilliant player at any time, but now 


“THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 147 

her fingers were strung until they felt like steel, and two of her 
listeners wondered at her. She set her little white teeth, and 
stormed the piano as if it were a fortress. 

“ Bravo!” cried the earl as she struck the last chord, and her 
hands dropped limp and listless in her lap. “ Magnificently played, 
my dear!” 

She scarcely heard him, but she set her white teeth again, and 
clinched her hands as she arose. 

” She shall never maiTy that man,” she said to herself, if any- , 
thing 1 can do can hinder it. ” 


CHAPTER XX. 

Ip Mr. Amelia’s detractors either were, or pretended to be, sur- 
prised at his rapid advancement in the world of journalism the little 
bantam of a man himself neither felt nor affected any amazement. 
He was superior to the pretence of modesty. When he had left his 
native town for Gallowbay he had already half matured certain 
opinions concerning himself, and the world had done little which 
had not tended to confiim them. He met with courage the people 
who disliked him, and he assumed that nothing but envy of his 
achievements and jealousy of his mental powers inspired the distaste 
which was obvious in so many people. This belief was of incal- 
culable service to him, for dislike became flattery, and the more 
people derided and avoided him the surer he felt of his own intel- 
lectual dominion. A comfortable, and in some respects an enviable, 
state of mind. 

The preparations for the production of “ The Way of the World ” 
went on with great briskness, and the little man scattered paragraphs 
with a lavish hand. Some of these fell upon stony ground, but 
others sprang up and bare fruit, Mr. Amelia had not yet arrived 
at such an eminence that it was worth other people’s while to trum- 
pet his achievements, and pending his arrival at that height he did 
his own trumpeting without any great reluctance. ^ All these spark- 
ling paragraphs were from his own pen. 

“ ‘ The Way of the World,’ a new sixpenny society weekly, which 
is announced shortly to appear, will be conducted by Mr. AViiliam 
Amelia, a gentleman whose rapid ascent in the ranks of London 
journalism has been the theme of much adverse and friendly com- 
ment. ’ ’ 

‘‘ Mr. W illiam Amelia, whose brilliant daily gossip in the columns 
of ‘ The Constitutional ’ has done so much to revolutionize the style 
of parliamentary summary in the London journals, has consented to 
accept the editorship of the new society weekly ‘ The Way of the 
World.’ ” 

“The announcement that Mr. William. Amelia has surrendered 
the command of the gallery staff of ‘ The Constitutional ’ in order to 
assume the editorehip of the new society weekly ‘ The Way of the 
World ’ is altogether without foundation.” 

The fact that no such announcement had been made did not pre- 
vent the publication of this paragraph. 


148 ^^THE WAY OF THE AVOELD.” 

AVhat good, Mr! Amelia asked himself, was to be got by pretend- 
ing to be modest? Who, having a candle, would set it under a 
bushel? Mr. Amelia’s candle was not the brightest in the world 
perhaps, but he set it as high as he could reach, and surrounded it 
with so many reflectors in the way of newspaper paragraphs that it 
glittered amazingly, and people at a distance began to think that he 
must be a person of remarkable capacities and of lofty standing. 
Now all this and much more which was yet to come would have 
been lost by modesty, and with his experience to back him he felt 
justified in despising that poor quality, whose one ..possible merit 
was that it might keep a rival in the background. 

Sylvester was inveigled from “The Scourge ” to illustrate the new 
journal, and a number of the best known people in London letters 
were asked to contribute to the earlier numbers. 

It fell upon a day that Mr. Amelia, bustling along the StranTd in 
.his well-saved tweed and well-brushed hat, came full upon Maddox. 
The junior was lounging along with an empty pipe between his fin- 
ger and thumb, ^nd the new-fledged editor saw that his attire was 
seedy and his whole aspect dejected and forlorn. It had never been 
a custom with him to recognize people who had fallen away from 
respectability, but he hailed Maddox with a genial-seeming brisk- 
ness and took him by the arm. 

“ Come this way,” he said, “ 1 want to speak to you.” 

He was not anxious to be seen in companionship with this shabby 
figure, and still holding on to Maddox’s arm he dived down one of 
the streets which lead to the Embankment. 

“ What’s the matter?” asked the junior, bending a pale face over 
him. 

“ Olancarty tells me,” began Mr. Amelia, “that you can write 
decent verse if you like to try. 1 want you to try. 1 am editing a 
new journal, a high-class journal, and 1 can’t put up with rubbish. 
There’s plenty of money behind the new venture, and 1 could en- 
gage a man who has a lofty reputation already if 1 liked, but I’m 
willing to do you a good turn if you’ll let me.” 

“I’m glad to meet somebody who is willing to do me a good 
turn,” said the poor junior with humble gratefulness. “ I’m badly 
enough in want of a good turn, God knows. I’ll do my best. 
When do you want the copy?” 

“ On Friday next,” returned Mr. Amelia, “ and every Friday 
afterward if the work is satisfactory.” He made a movement as if 
to turn away, but checked himself. “ By the way,” he said, “ let 
me give you a word of advice. You may not find it wise or useful 
to confess to everybody that you are in need of a good turn. I 
don’t think you’ll find that it will increase your prices. ” 

“ I mightn’t say it to everybodj^” answered Maddox, “ but it 
makes no difference with an old friend like you. And by George, 
if you knew all, Amelia, you’d see that I have reason to be glad andi 
grateful.” 

“ There must be no failure about the copy,” said Mr. Amelia. 
“We print on Tuesday, and it has to be illustrated.” 

“ What length?” asked the engaged poet, somewhat drearily. 

Oh,” said Mr. Amelia, “ say a column. Twelve verses — four 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 149 

lines each. Good morning. I’m in a hit of a hurry. Y ou’ll find 
me at the office at midday on Friday.” 

The junior being left alone took his thoughtful way into the 
Strand, and crossed it with bent head and hands folded behind him. 

“ A weekly poem,” he said to himself. ” I sha’n’t take a house 
in Westbourne Terrace on the strength of it, but I suppose it’ll pay 
for the daily loaf. How confoundedly leaden and sick it does make 
one feel to be hungry. I wonder if anybody would care for an essay 
On the Physical and Mental Effects of Hunger. By an Unaccus- 
tomed Experimentalist. Ghastly sensation it is, to be sure! Let me 
see — this is Wednesday. 1 had something to eat on Sunday, and I’m 
safe for a meal on Friday if Amelia’s pleased with the stuff I take 
to him. ] suppose a well-nourished man wouldn’t die of hunger in 
less than a fortnight.” 

“ Hallo, me choild,” said a friendly voice, and a friendly hand 
was laid upon his shoulder. “ Whither away?” 

“ How do you do, O’Hanlon?” asked the pale junior, looking 
up and putting out his hand. 

“ Come and drink,” said the Irishman. 

‘‘No, thank you,” answered Maddox. “I mustn’t drink just 
now.” 

“ Mustn’t drink?” cried O’Hanlon. “ The planet’s revolving on 
its axis in the customary manner. I’ve one or two contes drolatiques 
for ye, warm from the cow. Come and drink while I tell ye them. ’ ’ 

“ Well,” said Maddox, ‘‘ the fact is, I’ve got work to do, and so 
far, 1 haven’t fed to-day, and — ” 

The good Irishman glanced at him keenly, and saw the blush on 
his face. 

‘‘ Come and lunch with me, then,” said he. ” I was just going to 
-eat when I saw ye. I’m in funds to-day, and I was wondering 
who I’d ask to luncheon. Come along.” 

With a half ashamed suspicion that O’Hanlon understood his 
case, Maddox allowed himself to be dragged into a restaurant near 
at hand, and in a little while found a juicy steak, flowery potatoes, 
and a pint cup of bitter beer before him. By dint of eating with 
extreme slowness he managed to consume this admirable meal 
whilst Jack told his stories, which perhaps would scarcely bear retell- 
ing in these pages. When Mr. O’ Hanlon’s humor took a fictional 
turn, he wore something of a Rabelaisian tinge. 

‘‘ Ye said ye had work to do,” he said by and by, when the rem- 
nants of the repast were cleared away. “ Is it urgent?” 

‘‘ Not very urgent in point of time,” said Maddox, ‘‘ but I want 
to do it well, because I am promised a regular engagement if the 
first thing is successful,” 

‘‘ Can ye spare a couple of hours to earn a couple of guineas?” 
the Irishman demanded. “ I’m that pressed, I don’t know what to 
do with meself. If the spiritual authorities,’’ he added inwardly, 
‘‘ are at all disposed to be angvy at that for a lie, it’s the only way I 
can see to be good to the lad, and I can’t help it.” 

” Oh, yes,” said Maddox, nothing doubting the genuineness of 
this statement. ” To tell you the truth, I shall be uncommonly glad 
of the chance.” 


150 "‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

Now that he was going 'to have mone}'^ again, he did not so much 
care about its being known that he had been without it. 

“ ’Tis a leadin’ orticle,” said O’Hanlon, “I dew fora country 
paper wonce a week. Not political, but social. They take a joke 
very kindly, and if ye have one in stock, now’s your time for it. 
Where’ll ye wroite? Ye can go to me own room at the oflQce. ” 

Maddox assenting, away went he and the good Samaritan to- 
gether, and the youngster, being in high fe^her at this surprising 
change of fortune, chose his theme, harnessed his Pegasus to it, and 
drove him along in the most brilliant manner. 

Mr. O’ Haul on meanwhile sought an interview with the cashier. 

“ Bill,” said he, “ I’m wanting a couple of guineas.” 

“ Y’always were,” replied the cashier, who was a fellow-towns- 
man of Mr. O’Hanlon’s. “What’s it for? No dissipation, now. 
Honor bright?” 

“ I’ll tell ye the solemn truth. Bill,” said O’Hanlon. “ ’Tis a 
poor wretch of a creditor, that’s had the money owing to him till I 
haven’t the face to look’m in the oye. He’s that hard up, ’tis a 
pity.” 

“ Is it me ye choose to tell a tale loike that tew?” responded the 
cashier. 

“ ’Tis Gospel truth,” declared O’Hanlon. “ D’ 5 '’e think I couldn’t 
invent a better lie than that if 1 wanted to desave you?” 

“There’s something in that,” said his fellow-townsman, “but 
maybe ’tis your artfulness that makes you bring such a simple in- 
vention.” 

But he took Mr. O’Hanlon’s I O II for the money none the less, 
and that gentleman, without even a pretense at any conscientious 
qualm, handed over the coin to Maddox on the conclusion of the 
article. He commended the junior’s work highly, and overwhelmed 
him with thanks for having so admirably tided him Over so busy a 
time. 

“ I’ll have a row with the missis,” he said, with his eyes twink-* 
ling, “ when she finds I’m two guineas short on Friday. But*I’ll 
make it up to her somehow, and the lad’s a good lad, and a clever, 
and he’ll get on, and maybe he won’t turn his back on a man that 
liked him, like some of the rest of ’em.” 

As for the junior, he went his way refreshed and cheered. His 
landlady lay in wait for him in a shabby house in a shabby 
street off Great Portland Street, but he feared her not. He 
could pay her claim for a fortnight’s rent, and could still count 
thirty-five shillings of his own money — not a great sum, but 
enough to mean new hope. With a heart all tender and a brain 
all sparkling, the lad sat down in his garret and fastened on 
to his verses tooth and nail, and wrote and polished, and re- 
wrote and re-polished, by the feeble gleam of his rushlight. 
He was not going to be a ^reat poet — a great poet is a kind 
of fish which is not caught in the net of every century — but he 
had read a prodigious deal of fine poetry, and had practiced and 
imitated with hot zeal for years, and he had by nature a warm tem- 
perament, and an eager fancy, so that his verse was likely to be 
more than tolerable. 

Mr. Amelia had no great taste in verse, and no great knowledge 


151 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 

of its requirements, but the junior’s work looked all right to his 
mind, and he paid his guinea for it and had it put into type. When 
it came into Sylvester s hands for illustration the artist enjoyed it 
greatly and spoke of it with pleased warmth to his new chief. 

“ Do you think it good enough for—?” Mr. Amelia mentioned 
the name of a well known writer of verse. 

“ If this is his,” said Sylvester, “ he’s improving. I never saw 
anything of his until now that 1 cared for.” 

Mr. Amelia congratulated himself upon his own fortune and 
judgment, and kept Maddox on the staff of “The Way of the 
World ” as poet. The editor of the new vent^ure was really coming 
to be a person of distinction, and the prophecy of his own hopes had 
been fulfilled with a rapidity which was simply amazing. He made 
no change from his earlier habits, but lived in a singularly plain and 
•economical manner, so that he began to look at the record of his 
bank-book with complacency. If he bled Kimberley pretty liberally 
— as he did — Kimberley could stand it, and everybody knows that a 
society journal is likely to be an expensive toy — just at first. When 
it had had time to become popular Kimberley would no doubt reap 
the advantages accruing from his present outlay ; and even if that 
happy time should never come about — why, Kimberley could stand 
it still. 

Bearing in mind the proverb which says that' he who wants a 
thing well done must do it himself, Mr. Amelia in a short time be- 
gan to write the greater part of the journal. He had not, for the 
first time in his life, grown modest, and yet he concealed this fact 
from the proprietor. At first si^ht the concealment may appear 
strange, but the little man never did anything without a reason, and 
in this case his reason waS unusually solid. He drew, to begin with, 
a fairly handsome salary as editor, for Kimberley was rich and lib- 
eral, and perhaps even a little foolish with his money. Then he 
wrote a special political article for which he received special pay in 
consideration of the special information he could pick up about the 
lobby, or could cut out of the country letters of London Correspond- 
ents. He engaged, with Kimberley’s approval, one Captain Pharr 
to supply special military information at special rates. He engaged 
one Vernon L’Estrange, at special rates, to supply special social ar- 
ticles — also with Kimberley’s consent. He arranged with one or two 
other gentlemen for special articles at special prices, and the pecul- 
iar part of the business was that all these gentlemen sat in Mr. 
Amelia’s chair, and yjore Mr. Amelia’s clothes to write in. By this - 
ingenious device the journal not only gained in brilliance, but Mr. 
Amelia profited in pockets Kimberley proposed at one time to give 
a dinner to the members of his staff, and left his editor to issue the 
invitations. One would not be displeased to think that the little 
schemer had a bad hour or two in view of that proposal. The din- 
ner mever took place. Mr. Amelia was Protean on paper, but he 
could not fill a battalion of chairs at the dinner table, and even the 
apparition of five special gentlemen rolled into one might have been 
somew'hat startling to Kimberley’s nerves. 

“ Some people,” wrote a gentleman who is now leading a life of 
complete retirement, but wlio, at one time, made a considerable fig- 
ure in the world’s eye, “ some people has brains and no money, and 


152 


‘^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


some people has money and no brains. Surely them that has money 
and no brains was made for them as has brains and no money.’* 
Great wits jump, and the editor of “ The Way of the World ” had 
by independent process arrived at the conclusion thus forcibly set 
down. The distribution of brains and money between Kimberly 
and Amelia was certainly unequal, and this is a world in which most 
things have a tendency to find a common level. 

In this matter, as in the writing of the eventful letter to Major 
Heard, Mr. Amelia saw nothing but fair dealing. He was a man 
who could not have done a thing which he knew to be dishonorable. 
For people who were lax in respect to money matters he had a liv- 
ing and vivid scorn. Men who got into debt, men who squandered 
their incomes, men who gave away money in charity, he regarded 
with a profound contempt. In his whole life he was never in debt 
beyond his means, and if ever he could have fallen into such case, 
he would have felt himself a ‘criminal. There is no actual standard 
for honor as there is for the value of pounds and pence, and there 
are people in the world who would regard the device just chronicled 
as being a little shady and underhand. Mr. Amelia never thought 
it so, or he would never have put it into practice. A man may 
fairly be supposed to know himself better than anybody else can 
know him, and he knew that he was a man of the nicest honor. 

The journalist ’naturally boasted a cashier, and the cashier was 
naturally cognizant of Mr. Amelia’s arrangements in this particu- 
lar. He said nothing about the matter to his employer, but he talked 
it over with Sylvester, and the two used to express their opinions 
about the editor with some freedom. 

“ 1 say, Amelia,” said Sylvester, one day, as he worked in the 
same room with his chief at an illustration for one of Maddox’s 

poems, “ you can’t persuade me that this is ’s any longer. A 

man doesn’t change his style like this at his time of life.” 

Mr. Amelia sat at his desk in an arm-chair which revolved upon a 
^jentral pivot, and with a touch of his foot he burned and surveyed 
his companion. It was his hour for luncheon, and he was taking 
his modest repast at that moment. His little legs dangled within 
six inches of the ground, and in one hand he held a medicine bottle, 
marked into eight divisions and filled with eight ounces of sherry 
and water, and in the other hand a sandwich. He took a measured 
dose of the liquid, and a measured bite at the sandwich, and twin- 
kled at the artist. 

“ I never meant to take you in about it,” he said. “ It isn’t 

at all.” 

“ Who is it then?” .j,. 

“ Oh,” returned the little man, with obvious self- approval, “ I’ve 
got a ragged man of genius who does them cheap.” 

“ Ah!” said Sylvester, regarding him with genuine admiration, 
“ who is he?” 

“A fellow named Maddox,” answered Mr. Amelia. “ Kyrle 
Maddox.” 

“ Ah!” said Sylvester again. “ He’s a friend of mine. I’ll tell, 
him what you say.” 


153 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD/’ 


CHAPTER XXI. 

Alice Santerre was a charming girl with a rarely good heart 
and with social ideas which for a peer’s daughter were rather demo- 
cratic. She had as a matter of course been trained to believe that 
there was a wide gulf between the common people and the men and 
women of her own class. That was inevitable, and the belief that 
she had imbibed was (once more, as a matter of course) very largely 
true, though it had been a little over emphasized in the teaching. 
The smaller social distinctions were out of her range of vision and 
she saw only the two bodies in their broad aspect. Ella was actually 
representative and typical of one of these bodies— beautiful in per- 
son, noble in temperament. Kimberley, though not actually typical 
to her mind was yet sufficiently representative — not ill-mannered 
naturally, but ignorant of good manners, an oddity when translated 
from his own sphere into hers, though well enough in his own, no 
doubt. Alice had never disliked Kimberley, and had never despised 
him. She had liked him in a way, had pitied his shyness, and had 
known something of the tender goodness of his heart. But now, on 
a sudden, when he came to take away Ella, he became downright 
hateful and despicable. She could only couple them in her mind 
with an amazement of indignation and disdain. Kimberley had 
never cut a veiy noble figure in his life, but he had never been quite 
so ignoble in fact as he seemed now in her eyes. 

The two girls slept in adjoining rooms, and an hour after Alice 
had come to her resolve she entered Ella’s chamber and dismissed 
her maid. 

“You will not be wanted to-night, Priscilla.” 

Ella looked at her sister with a glance of appeal. An angry spot 
of red burned on either of the younger’s cheeks, her eyes glittered, 
and her lips were resolutely set, 

“ Come into my room, Ella,” she said, and Ella submissively 
followed her. She was tired and knew what was coming, and 
knew that it could only be as useless as it would be painful, but it 
had to be endured. Alice had already locked the door of the outer 
chamber behind the maid, and now, closing the door of her own 
room, drew the curtain across it, and faced her sister. 

“ What is it, dear?” asked Ella. 

“Don’t be hypocritical, ” returned the younger lady with great 
severity. “ You know'what 1 want to say.” 

“ If 1 know it,” Ella answered gently, “ you need not say it.” 

“ But I will say it,” said Alice impetuously. “ Ella, you shall 
not throw yourself away upon that man.” 

“ You will make me very unhappy, if you speak so,” said Ella. 

It is a most happy, a most fortunate thing for all of us.” 

“ Ella!” said the girl with a world of grieved remonstrance in the 
tone, and more than a spice of anger. 

“ It is a most fortunate thing for all of us.” 

“ For you?” fiercely and yet tenderly. 

“Yes, dear, for me!” She had actually brought herself to think 


154 : 


^^THE WAY OF THE WOELD. 


SO. It was appointed to her to make this marriage and to live a 
loveless life with a man for whom she could have neither liking 
nor esteem. If the sacrifice had seemed less terrible she would have 
gone to it with more reluetance. But there was nothing to qualify 
martyrdom here, and she was a sacrifice for her father and for the 
honor of the house. 

A cynical humorist might disport himself about this theme with 
much satisfaction, and there is occasion for a good deal of satire 
(though the theme is something musty) in a lady who is about to 
step from poverty to the martyrdom of wealth. Even the world, 
which has ordained such marriages as this, has always been severe 
on its judgment upon them, and has always in its heart rebelled 
against them. And the world accused the Earl of Windgall’s 
daughter of perfect heartlessness. She knew that well enough, and 
it was a part of the martyrdom she had accepted. There is a curi- 
ous strain in women which makes them court suffering at times. 
There was no hysteria in Ella’s case, and no weakness of sentimen- 
talism. She simply accepted what seemed like an inevitable duty. 
In plain English she was a woman of unusual nobility of character, 
and her religious sense had gi’own a trifie morbid by reason of the 
suffering she had already endured. 

To a plain man’s thinking no mere money pressure could justify 
such a sale as was here being made. Winclgall was honestly 
ashamed of himself, and knew that he had reason to be. But tO' 
the woman’s thinking everything was different. The shame itself 
became glorious when duty gild^ed it. The doctrine is of com se 
more than a little dangerous. You may sell a little too much of 
yourself for the sake of another, even though that other be your 
father. 

Alice was outside her sister’s mind and could not altogether un- 
derstand its workings. She knew enough, however, to know that 
Ella was bent upon self-sacrifice, and the whole of her own heart 
arose against it. She loved nobody so well as her sister, and she 
had never loved her so well as now. 

“Ella,” she said desperately, “you think you are going to, do- 
your duty, but you are not. Kothing in the world could make such, 
a marriage a duty. ’ ’ 

“You pain me, my dear,” said Ella, “ and you pain yourself.” 

“ Ella,” declared the younger, “ you have told me over and over 
again that you could not think how people married for money or 
position, or anything but esteem and love.” 

Girls talk together on these themes, and Alice’s charge was true 
enough. But then Ella’s innocent views about marriage had been 
pronounced long ago, before she knew her father’s necessities or had 
learned what hopes were centered upon herself. They were spoken 
indeed at a time when a romantic marriage between herself and a 
poor man of her own order had not seemed impossible to Ella’s 
eyes. The mere remembrance of those old thoughts was a pain to 
her. 

“1 know many things now,” she answered, “which 1 did not 
know then. You will understand them better by and by.” 

“lam not a child,” said Alice, warmly. “ l’ am seventeen, and 
you are only one-and-twenty.” She advanced suddenly, and twined 


^^THE AVAY OF THE AVORLD.” 155 

her arms about her sister’s waist; “ Ella, pray, pray don’t submit to 
this. You can never be happy. You have no right to throw your- 
self away. 1 can’t believe that papa is so wicked as to wish it, Ellal 
How mean and selfish you must think him.” 

In her first shame and terror at the proposed alliance Ella had 
fought against these harsh thoughts of her father and had van- 
quished tnem. She had conquered and was not going to let the 
beaten foes rally their forces and defeat her now. 

“ ]\Iy dear,” she said, not sorry for the opportunity of a diversion 
which this speech afforded, “ you must not speak or think of papa 
in that manner. Papa never did a mean or unworthy thing in his 
life.” 

” 1 don’t care,” said the younger girl, almost with passion. “ If 
he has persuaded you to this he has done a mean and wicked thing. He 
has done a thing I would not do if nothing elsel could do could save 
me from going to work in a factory like the girls in Gallowbay, and 
from living in such houses as they live in. How dare you tell me, 
Ella,” she flamed out, carried on by the daring of her own words 
almost as much as by the furnace of her thoughts ; ‘ ‘ how dare you 
tell me that he has never done a mean or unw^orthy thing, when he 
•can sell you to such a man as Mr. Kimberley? ISriuet}^ thousand 
pounds! If I were a father 1 would not sell a child of mine to save 
mySelf from ninety thousand lives of poverty, one dragged out after 
the other.” 

What with her grief and her anger, and the unaccustomed passion 
of her speech, she began to cry almost hysterically, whilst Ella com- 
forted and soothed her. Her own heart was sore the while, and was 
likely to be sore. She had nothing to look forward to but duty, 
and/look forward as she might she could awaken in it no willing- 
ness to travel along the dreary road which lay before her. She 
could find resignation, but it- bade fair to be the resignation of a 
proud heart-break, and nothing gentler or more bearable. 

” I am doing my duty, dear,” she said, when Alice had half re- 
covered, and had broken into renewed supplications. “ You will 
know it by and by. ” * 

“ You!” cried the younger. “ You are ^n angel, but if papa allows 
you to go on I can never respect or love him any more.” 

“ Hush, hush!” said Ella, with an air of severity;. “ youmustnot 
say or think such wicked things.” 

” They are not wicked,” Alice protested, “ and I don’t care if 
they are. They are true. 1 don’t care, what papa’s troubles about^ 
money are! A man would never sell his child to escape from them. 
1 hate him for it; I hate him!” 

“Alice,” said Ella, sternly. “I can listen no longer, I have 
listened too long. Go to your own room,” she added, more gently, 
“ and try to forget these wicked thoughts.” 

She approached to kiss her, but Alice, with unreasoning anger, 
put her away and went to her own chamber, where she cried through 
half the night. Ella tried to find, and found in a while, some com- 
, fort in her pra 5 ^ers. The human heart can do anything with itself. 
This sordid match became a heaven-sent obligation, and Kimberley’s 
presumptuous proposal became a providence. She resigned herself 
anew, but her heart asserted itself in her dreams, and she wandered 


15G 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

•with Jack Clare through the blessed realms of dreamland, and they 
two plighted their troth together there, and she told him of a dread- 
ful dream which had looked so like truth that she had never doubted 
it, a dream in which she had been compelled to engage herself to a 
man she despised, but who had her father in his power. And so, 
when she awoke in the morning the struggle had to be renewed, and 
the tears to be wept again, and the prayers to be prayed once more. 

The very poverty of the Earl of Windgall had helped to draw his 
family the closer, though not with a bond of which any one of them 
had been conscious. But had he been wealthier those calm social 
dissipations which form so large a share of the life of the leisured 
and moneyed classes would have drawn them away from each other, 
and would have given them other interests than those of an elegant 
yet narrow domesticity. As it was they had all been beautifully 
united and close to each other, and an atmosphere of equable affec- 
tion had always dwelt about them. It became clear to the hapless 
head of the household that with one of his children at least these 
halcyon days were over. Alice lived for a day or two in such open 
disdain of him, and showed for this brief space a spirit of so much 
rebellion, that, though he guessed the cause, he was compelled to 
take her to task. 

She was sitting in the library moodily turning over the leaves of a 
book when his lordship entered. Seeing him she closed the bo'ok 
with unnecessary vehemence, and arose to leave the apartment. The 
earl closed the door behind him. 

“ Take a seat,” he said, calmly, though his heart was beginning 
to beat uncomfortably, “ 1 have something to say to you.” 

Alice remained standing with her hands entwining behind her, and 
one small foot set a little before its fellow, beating tattoo upon the 
carpet. 

“ There is something in your manner of late, Alice,” said Wind- 
gall, “ of which 1 cannot approve, and — and — which 1 am at a loss 
to understand. 1 had noticed it before to-day, but I have forborne 
to speak until it became so direct and pronounced that I could for- 
bear no longer. Understand, if- you please, that there is a limit to 
my endurance, and that I cannot allow any child of mine to behave 
to me as you have done during the last day or two. I will not speak 
harshly to you, but 1 must ask you to allow what 1 have already 
said to be enough.” 

“ What have 1 done, papa?” she asked, still tapping at the carpet. 

“Done!” cried her father, whose nerves were by no means so 
much under control as they had used to be. “You have assumed 
airs toward me which are intolerable. Your manner toward me for 
three days past has been one of continual insult and disdain.” 

“ I assure you,” said the pretty rebel, looking up with pale face 
and flashing eyes, ‘ ‘ that 1 have assumed no airs. But I am very 
young, and 1 am not so well practiced as Ella is in concealing what 
I think and feel.” 

Now this went through my lord like a rapier, and he winced at it, 
whilst his gray face turned a shade grayer. 

“Y^ou forget yourself,” he said, “and me. Do yourself the 
honor to remember that 1 am your father. ” 

“I remember that,” she answered with a tone of cruel disdain. 


167 


‘^THE AVAY or THE WOKLD.” 

^'he burden of poverty, the long-drawn fear of open bankruptcy, 
had never weighed upon her. She knew nothing of the shames he 
had suffered, or of the terrors which had hardened him. He recog- 
nized all that, but it made the open contempt of his own daughter 
none the easier to bear. He knew that he had acted shamefully. 
He knew that a stronger and nobler man than he would never have 
laid such a weight upon a daughter’s heart as he had laid on Ella’s. 
But that a man should despise himself makes it no easier for him to 
endure the knowledge that others despise him also. 

To allow the matter to rest in its present position would not in the 
least have advanced the cause the girl had at heart. It cost her 
more than a mere tremor to stand thus in defiance before her own 
father. But she felt that she would be a coward beneath her own 
contempt if she did not speak out. The earl was silent and had 
moved to one of the bookshelves to conceal his anger and discom- 
fiture. 

“You said, papa,” she be^an, “ that you were at a loss to under- 
stand the change you notice in my manner.’’ 

“ Alice,’’ said her father, turning upon her with an agitated face 
and voice, ‘ ‘ 1 will not pursue a conversation which you are dis- 
posed to carry on in such a tone.” 

“ I cannot help it, papa,” said the girl, and in spite of herself her 
voice began to break and her lip to tremble. “ I have been trying 
to speak to you ever since 1 heard the dreadful news.” 

The last words broke from her with a sob, and she was crying 
outright when her father answered her. 

“ What is all this?” he cried, querulously, the air of dignity he 
had tried to wear dropping suddenly away from him. “What 
dreadful news?” 

“ The news,” Alice answered, struggling with her sobs and look- 
ing at him disdainfully through her tears, “ that Ella is to marry 
Mr. Kimberley. Oh, papa, how dare you force her to such a match?” 

“I force her?” cried the wretched nobleman. “ 1 have never 
forced her. I have not even persuaded her to it.” He had had so 
much to urge upon Ella, and had really so little urged her that he 
felt this to be true. “ She has acepted Mr. Kimberley's proposal of 
her own free wfll, and is perfectly conscious of the advantages on 
both sides of the alliance. But you have no right even to think 
upon these matters.” 

“ 1 have a right to think of them,” she answered. “ 1 will not 
stand by without a word and see Ella thrown away. 1 will not see 
her break her heart and say nothing.” 

He writhed inwardly with shame and anger, and in his inmost 
heart he knew that she was in the right. Had he been differently 
circumstanced he could even have admired her courage and her de- 
votion to her sister. 

“ Once more,” he said, turning round to the shelf and taking 
down a volume at haphazard, “ 1 decline to continue this conver- 
sation.” 

He beat the book between his hands, and expelled his breath 
noisily in blowing away an imaginary cloud of dust, and then rapidly 
left the room and closed the door. In a second or two he was back 
again. She had sunk into a chair and had laid her head upon her 


158 ^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

hands, and leaned across the table in abandonment to her despair 
for Ella. 

“ These dissensions,” he said, “ are plain to the whole household, 
and their cause is not likely to remain unknown if they continue. 
Now, 1 have never been accustomed to make my private affairs the 
theme of servants’ gossip, and 1 will not begin it now. Let me 
notice a different demeanor in you when I see you next.” 

She made no answer, and controlling himself frorn further speech 
he left her, but encountering a servant in the corridor, and recog- 
nizing the likelihood of a discovery of Alice in her tears, he stopped 
short, and addressed the man. 

“ Worthing,” he said, “ 1 am in thelibraiy, and am not to be dis- 
turbed on any consideration for an hour.” 

” Very well, my lord,” said the servant, and Windgall, waiting 
until he had passed, opened the door again, and slid into the room 
suddenly, being fearful lest one of his daughter’s sobs should be 
overheard. 

“ I have given orders that no one is to come here for an hour,” 
he said, once more approaching her. “ In that time I trust you will 
have composed yourself . ” 

Then he sat beside the window at some distance from her and 
made an effort to read, and, finding that impossible, stared wretch- 
edly out at the park, and tried to console himself by a view of the tim- 
ber which Kimberley’s opportune proposal had saved to him. In a 
little while Alice raised her head, wiped her eyes, and swept haugh- 
tily from the room. He had found his own inaction almost intoler- 
able, and being released now from the necessity of its continuance, 
he began to pace up and down the room, whilst his thoughts scourged 
him. 

” Great heaven,” he broke out at last, ” I am not a monster with 
a heart of marble. I haven’t forced her. I have not compelled her 
inclinations in anyway. She was always a sensible girl, and always 
disposed to look at things in a reasonable way. She liked that fel- 
low Clare now; I know she did. And yet I never heard a murmur 
from her when I warned him away, and told him that a match be- 
tween them would be madness. 1 am sorry to see so much sentiment 
in Alice, though, with a wealthy married sister behind her, she 
may be better able to afford it. I can afford it better now, with all 
these confounded debts lifted from my shoulders. Upon my word, 
that little Kimberley’s a very good fellow, and a very gentlemanly 
little fellow too by this time. Very passable indeed. That’s blood, 
no doubt. He comes of a good stock on one side— the same stock as 
poor Edward, and there wms no better gentleman in England than 
he would have made had he lived, poor boy. If the man had been 
a snob all through he could never have made such % leap into good 
manners. With a little more assurance he’d be very near the right 
thing, begad, he would. And if Ella’s satisfied, what has Alice to 
lament about?” 

His murmured words, as of ten happens when men commune with 
themselves, never for one instant came near his inmost thought. The 
cunningest self-deception is managed in soliloquy, because then the 
self-deceiver can be so sure that he wants to deceive nobody, to talk 
nobody over. 


^'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 159 

But my lord had to make a period to his own speech at this point, 
and to ask himself — was Ella satisfied? At the bottom of his heart 
he knew better than to believe that flimsy lie. He saw the pallor of 
her lovely face, the pallor of her movements, the hourly struggle to 
be cheerful under the burden his needs imposed upon her. 

He was not at all an ogre, but a weakish man with a good heart, 
and he was sorely tried. When he next saw Ella alone the good 
'' heart so smote him that he must needs go up to her, and put an arm 
about her waist and kiss her. 

“ You are not unhappy, dear?” he said tremulously. You don’t 

regret — ’ ’ 

“ No, dear,” she answered with a tender smile. “ Why should 
1 be unhappy? Why should 1 regret?” 

He salved his conscience pretty successfully with that reply, and 
Ella found herself to be cordial with poor little Kimberley whenever 
he appeared. 

But the millionaire was unhappier than ever. The one creature 
who had ever made the house tolerable to him was Alice, and now 
she met him with a scrupulous politeness which made him feel chill 
to the marrow. Shouldershott Castle was a gorgeous iceberg to him, 
or it had always been, but the one sunbeam which had cheered him 
fell upon his solitude no longer. 


CHAPTER XXll. 

Kimberley was too much absorbed in affairs which more nearly 
concerned him to take any close interest in the progress of the new 
journal, and, except that he signed a monthly check to meet its ex- 
penses, had little indeed to do with it. Once a week it was laid on 
the table before him, and he got a kind of pride and satisfaction out 
of it, though it came natural to him to feel a sort of impertinent in- 
terference with the affairs of other people when he read the fashion- 
able gossip. It seeme^. as if that impertinent interference were his 
own since he was the proprietor of the journal. Mr. Amelia doubt- 
less knew best wdiat such a publication should be, but if Kimberley 
had been less shy than he was “ The Way of the World ” would cer- 
tainly have been a much less impudent affair, and its quest of gossip 
much less inquisitorial. 

, Mr. Amelia, in the double prosperity which now attended upon him, 
took a house in a quiet bourgeois quarter of the town, and developed 
an unexpected habit of asking people to dinner. The people were 
always considerable. He was not the one to waste a dinner on a 
nobody, and the perfect crisp assurance of his “ Come and dine with 
me,” caught more important personages than one would have 
thought at all likely to sit at his table. But his plan had always 
been to get whatever was to be had by asking. The least little 
touct in the ^vorld of Kimberley’s malady would have ruined him, 
but he was as free from nervousness as he was from modesty. 
Measuring everybody by himself, and profoundly convinced that 
few could rightfully claim equality with him, if any, he was serene 
in the presence of all men. No greatness abashed him. A great 
man (who was pretty generally over middle-age) had only seized and 


IGO ^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

made good use of all his chances. Mr. Amelia was quite young, and 
all his chances had not yet arrived. When they came he was there 
to take them, and he recognized in himself the power to grow a little 
bigger than the biggest. 

When a thing belonged to Mr. Amelia it had a value in his sight 
such as it could never have possessed if it had been the property of 
another. The story of his own brief career read to his own mind like 
a fairy tale, of which he was the living hero. So little a while ago, 
with all his powers and his capacities, he had looked to the eye of 
the world like a mere nobody, and now he was a figure in London 
journalism. There were plenty of men in positions parallel with his 
own, but he never thought so. A mere editor — a mere chief of staff 
in the House of Commons — wras nobody compared with him. This 
of course is only another way of saying that his sympathies were 
limited to the affairs of Mr. Amelia. 

This characteristic cropped out in the drollest little ways con- 
oeivable. 

“ Who’s that?” asked Sylvester one day as the door of the editor’s 
room closed on the dragoon-like figure of a young Scotchman who 
bad just been loaded with a number of instructions by Amelia. 

“ That,” said the little man, with an admirably casual air, ” is my 
private secretary. ’ ’ 

Sylvester whistled, and then laughed. 

” 1 say, Amelia,” said he, ” what a prodigious swell you’re getting 
to be, to be sure.” 

” He’s a droll fellow,” said Mr. Amelia, disregarding this ex- 
clamation. ” A very good fellow too, and very useful, but ridicu- 
lously touchy.” 

” He’s a Scotchman,” said Sylvester. 

“Ah!” said Mr. Amelia, “I suppose that explains it. He’s a 
graduate of Edinburgh Lniversity. He came last week, and on the 
first morning he was half an hour earlier than 1 had wanted him. 1 - 
was at breakfast, and 1 told my servant to show him into the parlor, 
and to take up a kitchen chair for him to sit on. I never sit on the 
parlor chairs myself, of couise, unless 1 have guests. I went up ^ 
when 1 had finished breakfast, ana the fellow had actually put the 
kitchen chair out on the landing, and there he was, lolling on a new 
satin- covered settee.” 

“What an awful cheek,” said Sylvester, chuckling richly to' 
himself. 

“ Wasn’t it?” cried Amelia. 

“ Thought himself insulted, 1 daresay,” said the artist, with a 
face en wreathed with smiles. ” 

“ Obviously,” returned Mr. Amelia. 

“ 1 should be careful with him,” said Sylvester, “ if 1 were you. ~ 
He’s a big fellow, and next time, by George, if he has a temper like 
that he might pitch the chair over the balusters and send you after ~ 
it. Awfully impolite fellow he must be. Quite a bear!” 

“ Oh, no!” Ml. Amelia responded unconsciously. “ He isn’t at^ 
all a bad-mannered fellow. But he’s peppery— absurdly peppery, 
and a little inclined to be above his station.” 

“ That’s it,” said the artist. “ Some men only know modesty by"' 
name, and you meet people who haven’t the remotest consideration 


*'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 161 

for other men’s feelings. Fancy putting that chair on the landing! 
It was almost an insult.” 

“ It was certainly insolent,” Mr. Amelia assented. 

Meeting the private secretary that afternoon, Sylvester accosted 
him. 

“ Mr. Macfarlane, 1 believe?” The tall Scotchman bowed with a 
simple dignitj^ ‘‘My name’s Sylvester, 1 do the drawings for the 
paper.” 

“lam proud to make your acquaintance, sir,” said the other. 

“ Did you ever taste Scotch whisky?” asked Sylvester. The pri- 
vate secretacry smiled. ‘ ‘ There is a first-rate tap close at hand. Come 
and try it.” 

Over their liquor and a pipe, Sylvester, among whose other defects 
shyness had no place, related with great spirit, and with a capital 
rendering of his chief’s manner, the conversation of the morning. 

“ Ma word,” said the secretary, with bis eyes wide open with a 
smile of wonder, “ the man had no more brains nor self respect than 
to tell that!” 

“ He has brains enough,” said Sylvester. “ But there’s a hole in 
him.” 

“ There was very near being a hole in him,” returned the other 
with considerable heat. “ I’d the greatest mind in the world to hit 
him over the head with the chair!” 

“ That would have been a pity,” said Sylvester. “1 wouldn’t 
have him spoiled or ' broken for the world. He’s as good as a con- 
tented mind to me — a continual feast.” ^ 

The little man was prodigiously busy at this time in the completion 
of that well-known work entitled “ Thumb Nail Sketches in Parlia- 
ment,” bj" the member for Land’s End. It was wonderfully clever 
in its way, and hit off the surface characteristics of people to a nicety. 
All the odd little peculiarities of honorable members were touched 
with a labored dexterity which had an admirable air of impromptu. 
Who wore a white waistcoat, and who a red tie; who had a perpetual 
trick of losing his hat, and was to be met in the tea room and the 
lobby in bewildered search after it ; how people sat, how they walked, 
how they gesticulated, how this honorable gentleman’s coat or 
trousers failed to fit him, and how bad a hat that honorable gentle- 
man wore: all these trifles and this sort of trifle were set down in Mr. 
Amelia’s book with a sprightly air of instantaneous mental photog- 
raphy, which many people found amusing. The tall collars of a 
certain eminent statesman were a joy for ever to him, and he seemed 
figuratively to skip whenever he beheld them. All the waistcoats 
and collars and ties had sparkled in the columns of the “ Constitu- 
tional,” and now they were actually to shine permanently between 
the boards of a book. 

Now the great Fergus Gowen, whose name is a household word 
wherever the English language is spoken, was a very tower of 
strength to the “ Constitutional,” and Mr. Amelia had naturally met 
his distinguished fellow on many occasions and had always been 
treated very civilly. When the book came out it bore upon the page 
which followed the title this inscription, “To Fergus Gowen this 
book is dedicated by his friend and colleague the author.” 

“ Confound his impudence!” said the great man when he received 
* 6 


162 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD/' 


his presentation copy and read the dedication. “ When was the little 
beggar a friend of mine?” 

But with the outside public the dedication had the weight which 
the cunning Amelia meant it to have. It was outside all likelihood 
that his eminent ” friend and colleague” should repudiate the dedi- 
cation. That, of course, was next door to the impossible. The in- 
cognito was carefully calculated to draw attention to the author’s 
name, “ The author of that sprightly series of parliamentary por- 
traits which, under the title of ‘ Thumb Nail Sketches,’ has aroused 
so much amusement in political circles, is Mr. William Amelia, the 
chief of the gallery staff of the ‘ Constitutional,’ and the editor of 
‘ The Way of the ‘World.’ ” The private secretary penned that par- 
agraph at Mr. Amelia’s dictation, and, having made a score of copies 
of it, sent it to a score of journals in his own name. One or two 
printed it and the country journals copied it. In its own way the 
book is really very bright and clever, and when Mr. Amelia sat down 
to say so on paper he did himself no more than justice. He reviewed 
the volume in “ The Way of the World,” and spoke of it with high 
approval, as was perhaps natural. What was the good of having 
exclusive control over the destinies of a London weekly unless he 
chose to employ that control? This kind of thing is not general 
amongst pressmen, but see how slowly they rise to fame as a rule, how 
often they remain altogether unknown to the world. Here was the 
little Amelia going up like a rocket, half by chance, to be sure, but 
half because he knew how to announce himself. A fool might play 
Mr. Amelia’s game in vain, but then he was really so clever! He 
was almost in measurable distance of being as clever as he thought 
he was — and that is not a thing to be said with truth of every man 
who imagines himself to be a smart fellow. 

The knack he had of getting the best place everywhere was a thing 
remarkable in itself, and contributed greatly to that air of importance 
which now surrounded him. When the great Grecian, whom Mr. 
Amelia had once failed to follow in Mr. Pitman’s system of short- 
hand, took the chair at a dinner given by the Cannibal Club, and 
there was a great scramble for places, and the genial secretary was 
at his wit’s end to please everybody, the little man secured a place 
right opposite the distinguished guest by one of the simplest expedi- 
ents in the world-. 

“ I want a good place,” he wrote to the secretary, “ because 1 have 
invited so and.so to be my guest for the evening.” He named a ris- 
ing politician, and he got the place at once. The prominent pol- 
itician did not appear — perhaps Mr. Amelia had forgotten to invite 
him — and the little ruseur turned up with a country editor whom (for 
reasons of his own) he wanted to think well of him. There was 
something of a disturbance about this but the country editor never 
heard of it, and Mr. Amelia got the London letter he fished for. To 
be seen, indeed, in so prominent a place upon an occasion so impor- 
tant was worth a small fortune to him, and left a delicious flavor on 
his own mental palate besides. 

Such a man is hound to get on. There is no withholding him. 

“ ’Tis not in mortals to deserve success, 

But we’ll do more, Sempronius, w e’ll command it.” 


163 


^‘THE WAY OF THE WOKLD.” 

Maddox and Sylvester had grown to be great cronies, and the 
junior was not pale or seedy any longer. Mr. Amelia found a good 
deal of work for him on “ The Way of the World,” and so kept 
down the expenses of the paper. That little crowd of special 
writers at special prices, who were all so surprisingly like Mi. 
Amelia, made the journal a rather dear venture for Kimberley, and 
to get a ragged man of genius cheap was of course a happy stroke of 
fortune. He was not so foolish as to tell Maddox that he was cheap, 
but, on the contrary, he made a special favor of the fact that he 
gave him work to do, and the youngster accepted his chief’s esti- 
mate of the situation and was veiy grateful. Taking the chief all 
round he thought well of him and for a long time he could not 
understand the general dislike of him, but had to set it down to his 
manner or to envy. 

Nobody could ever tell precisely how the story of Mr. Amelia’s 
reason for leaving Gallowbay got up to London. It was certain 
that Rider never told it, and indeed Rider was as far away from 
London for all practical purposes as if he had been at the North 
Pole. Major Heard had talked about the matter perhaps, for he 
hated Amelia, and had always disdained the little man’s appeal for 
privacy. Anyhow, here the story was, and people who knew and 
disliked the man against whom it told related it with much unction. 

‘ ‘ I praise the bridge that carries me over, ’ ’ said Maddox. ‘ ‘ Amelia 
has been a good friend to me.” 

“ My simple-minded infant,” returned Sylvester, “ he has been a 
very good friend to himself. I told him at the time that 1 should 
tell you what he said when he first mentioned your name to me. 1 
asked him who was doing the poems, and he said that he’d found a 
ragged man of genius who did ’em cheap.” 

“ That’s very complimentary,” said Maddox with a forced laugh. 
The thing wounded him more than he cared to show. 

“You were with him in the country, wern’t you? At Gallow- 
bay?” 

‘■Yes,” said Maddox. He was thinking of the ragged man who 
did things cheap, and only half heard the question. He felt a some- 
thing coarse and heartless in the phrase, a something greedy and 
unpitying. 

“ Of course you were,” said Sylvester. “ Now you can tell me, 
perhaps, if this is true? 1 don’t want to believe a lie about him, and 
nobody has a good word for him.” 

He told the story of Mr. Amelia’s attempt to supplant Rider. 

“ No,” said Maddox, “ 1 don’t think that’s true. A man who 
could do that would be base enough for anything. 1 shall find out, 
though. If it’s true, he deserves that it should be known; but if 
it isn’t, it oughtn’t to be spoken of. 1 shall write to Rider, and ask 
him to deny it.” 

Poor Rider was reluctant to unbury this episode, but he answered 
the letter Maddox wrote to him. He was very sorry, he said, that 
the story had got abroad, but it was true. He had never breathed a 
word of it, even to his wife, and would never have told it, but un- 
happily, it was true. This letter hurt the lad, for he had been grate- 
ful, and in spite of all would fain have been grateful still, Mr. 


1G4 


‘'THE WAY OF THE WOKLU.’* 

Amelia had undoubtedly been a benefactor to him. He^ had given 
him work when he had* actually been hungiy and starving, and, if 
not actually ragged, on the way to rags. He had made a favor of 
it too, and the junior, though he thought well enough of himself to 
believe that his work was worth the money he got for it, had taken 
the employment as the gift of friendship. “ A ragged man of genius 
who did things cheap.” The phrase rankled in him. 

“It wasn’t that he thought me a genius,” he said to himself, 
shrewdly enough, “but that he wanted to brag of his own dirty 
little cleverness. And, great heaven ! that a man should think it 
worth while to boast that he took advantage of another man’s needs 
in that way. 1 can fancy a dog mean enough to take the advantage, 
but to brag about it! One w'ould think that a man would be. ^ 
ashamed to show that dirty spot in his heart.” 

No doubt the junior made something too much of this, but he was 
young, even for his years, and it and the Rider episode taken to- 
gether made him very wrath against his benefactor, who wore all a 
benefactor’s airs, and who began to feel a little surprised at his ^yro- 
terje's altered manner. 

“ It is an ungrateful world,” mused Mr. Amelia. “ I took the 
fellow in hand when he was staiwing.” He took credit to himself 
for generosity in this matter, and he had really meant to be friendly 
in his own way. But Iris way of being friendly was to make some 
sort of profit out of friendship, to secure some social advantage or 
pecuniary gain, and the common way of being friendly tends in 
another direction, so that he was liable to misunderstand things, 
and to be himself misunderstood. 

There was no actual open breach between them, but there was a 
coldness on both sides. Amelia never suspected the real reason of 
Maddox’s change of manner, and, conceiving himself entitled to the 
young man’s gratitude, was naturally affronted by it. But every- 
ixidy about the office of “ The Way of the World ” was talking 
unrestrainedly at this time about the special gentlemen at special 
prices who all wore Mr. Amelia’s clothes, and he was credited with 
more meannesses than were actually true of him. Maddox heard 
all these things , and was in the humor to believe them, so that day 
by day his ingratitude grew marked and flagrant, and Mr. Amelia 
was more and more disappointed in him. 

The fact has to be confessed that at this period of his career the 
junior was an absolute fool about money. He lent it, he borrowed 
It, he spent it, he gave it away, with equal freedom. He was al- 
w^ays ready to share his last half-sovereign with a friend, and he 
borrowed with no shame or reluctance. In the long run he paid 
everybody, but he was always under water, and he owed money to 
Mr. Amelia, who had by no means so light an opinion of its value, 
A regular contributor to a journal w occasionally permitted to 
overdraw his account, and Maddox having this favor extended to 
him displayed no particular haste to square himself. Apart from 
this there were splendid materials for a quarrel, but this was the fuse 
which fired the mine. 

One fine morning the junior received a letter in a strange hand- 
writing, but bearing the familiar signature of his chief. 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 165 

“ My dear Maddox,” ran the letter, “You are tolerably prosper- 
ous now, and you have mainly to thank me for the helping hand 1 
gave you. 1 think it quite time that you repaid your debt to me, 
and 1 was astonished to hear you had drawn your check yester- 
day at the office in full, 1 shall expect to receive at least a portion of 
the debt by return of post. Yours very truly, William Amelia.” 

This epistle had obviously been dictated to the private secretary. 
Had it been written in the chief’s own hand, the junior would have 
accepted the rebuke conveyed in it as being no more than his due, 
but the indignity of being addressed in tffis way through a third 
person was more than he could endure. 

“ My dear Amelia,” he wrote back, in savage haste. “You shall 
have your money when I have it to send, but if ever you again 
venture to address me in such terms as I find in j'-our letter of yester- 
day, and to employ a third person to put down these terms on paper, 
I will set my little brother at you. I can’t assault a man of your 
inches with my own hands. Kyrle Maddox. ” 

There was probably no man in England more annoyed that day 
than was Mr. Amelia when he received this letter. The black and in 
solent ingratitude of it literall}'" staggered him. This, then, was the 
man he had assisted; of course, the indignation at being addressed 
through the private secretary was simply assumed. The pretense 
was too flaring to be believed in, even for a moment. Mr. Amelia 
was fated by nature to be frequently astonished. People took such 
amazing views of things! They called Major Heard a man of honor, 
and as for this astonishing ungrateful scoundrel of a Maddox, if 
there was one characteristic attributed to him by the general voice 
it was that he was impetuously v; arm-hearted. One would have ex- 
pected gratitude from ^laddox I 

In short, Mr. Amelia’s strength was also his weakness. That per- 
fect self-opinion of his supported him through anything, but it left 
him unable to comprehend the sentiments with which other people 
regarded him. He knew in his inmost heart that he could do 
nothing mean, and yet people constantly pretended to think him 
mean. He forgot his satisfaction at the cheapness of his ragged 
man of genius, and he remembered only that the man had been in 
sore distress, and had confessed as much when first he had employed 
him. It was his hand which had succored the drowning man, and 
if he had made the rescued person pay for rescue, why surely there 
was nothing harsh in that, or grasping, or unfair. The market- 
price of a thing is what it will fetch, and no man who did not 
maintain a respectable entourage could expect to get the best prices 
for his work. All that had been at the time so much a matter of 
fact to him, but he never thought of it now at all. 

This was the beginning of the Amelia-Maddox warfare, and its 
earliest result was to plunge the junior back into poverty, for he was 
too wrathful to write another line for “ The Way of the World,” 
either for Amelia’s sake or his own. Mr. Amelia used to write at 
uncertain intervals and demand his money, and at last grew quite 
pathetic over it, . . 


16S ‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

“ 1 have actually,” he said, “ gone without a suit of spring cloth- 
ing in consequence of your non-payment of your debt.” 

Maddox, who knew something of the little man’s sources of in- 
come, grinned at this stroke of pathos with wrathful irony, but for 
all the despite and disdain he had come to feel for his sometime 
chief, he did actually owe him the money, and could do nothing 
less than pay him in some way or another. The only way he could 
see was to work out the debt, and Mr. Amelia consenting to this, 
Maddox wrote an article or t wo and sent them in. They w ere prin ted, 
and at the rate of payment he had been accustomed to receive their 
value exceeded his "debt by some thirty shillings. He had not a 
penny in the world apart from this, and he was awfully hungry. 

When he went to draw his balance Mr. Amelia was absent, and 
the cashier tendered him his check, 

* ‘ 1 can’t take it, ’ ’ he said. ‘ ‘ 1 owe Amelia the greater part of it. ’ ’ 

“ What for?” asked the cashier. 

“ Oh,” said Maddox, “ the overdraft 1 made months ago, when 
I was on the staff here. ’ ’ 

“ You don’t owe that to Mr. Amelia,” said the cashier. “ It was 
entered as a bad debt, and was settled in Amelia’s favor when Mr. 
Kimberley ceased to be connected with the paper. If you owe it to 
anybody j’^ou owe it to Mr. Kimberley,” 

“ He can afford to wait for it better than I can,” said Maddox. 
” You can tell Amelia that I’ve taken it, and you can tell him why.” 
The cashier laughed, and handed the check across the table. “You 
mean to tell me,” said the jurfior, “ that he has been paid this sum 
already, whilst he has been writing to me for it, week by week?” 

“ That’s the fact,” said the cashier. 

“Tell him 1 took the check,” answered Maddox, “and never 
mind telling him why. I’ll keep that little bit of information as a 
bonne bouch£ for him.” 

After tliis Mr. Amelia had a real right to despise Maddox, a right 
genuine and indisputable. For his part Maddox felt an equal right 
to despise Amelia, and the two were at daggers drawn for life. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

Kimberley knew perfectly well that he ought to be happy, and 
was just as well persuaded that he was miserable. He had grown 
used to his money, and was no longer very greatly oppressed by it; 
he had grown used to the new people amongst whom he moved, and 
had found that they were really no more terrible than the people 
•amongst whom his earlier lot had been cast. A stranger would al- 
ways be a terror to him to the end of his days, but the stranger of 
wealth and position had come (with familiarity with his like) to ire no 
worse than the stranger who was poor. He had got over the misery 
of being wealthy, and use had inured him to fine clothes and mag- 
nificent apartments, and his one unhappiness was that he was in 
love. His suit prospered, and he was an accepted lover, and there 
lay his one great burden. 

He did not know it, but if Ella had refused him he would have 
been infinitely less unhappy. 


^'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 167 

There is no man so humble that he is incapable of being flattered, 
and sometimes even Kimberley could believe that Ella had accepted 
him from other sentiments than those inspired by his money. He 
had left her choice perfectly free and unfettered, and yet she had 
chosen him. It was inevitable that he should ask himself why, and 
should torment himself with all the diiferent solutions the problem 
would take. First solution of all, that she loved him. There was 
nobody in the world to whom that could look more wildly impossi- 
ble than it looked to Kimberley, and yet there were moments when 
he believed it, and was pretty nearly mad with the vertigo of the 
delight it brought him. Next, that she esteemed him; that she 
thought his conduct to her father generous, that she thought well 
of his whole character; a belief a little less delirious than the other, 
but almost as maddening in its effects whilst it lasted, and apt to be 
as quickly buried beneath the tumbling avalanche of shame which 
always killed these fancies. Next, that gratitude moved her: for 
he could guess pretty fairly, all things considered, what the fear of 
an open exposure of her father’s poverty would have been to a heart 
so proud. Next, that she married for her sister’s sake, and last, that 
she simply took him for his money. Now gratitude looked cold 
enough and yet was the most bearable of them all. The wild and 
transient fancy that she loved him brought in its way a pain almost 
as intolerable as the suspicion, not to be repressed at times, that she 
had taken him merely for his money. 

There are snobs enough in the world who could have accepted 
everything that had befallen Kimberley as their own neural due. It 
was because the unhappy little man was so truly a gentleman, whilst 
he thought himself a snob, that he suffered. Had our other small 
friend, Mr. Amelia, for example, fallen upon Kimberley’s lines, 
how happy he could have been. Kimberley was an infldel to his 
own deservings, but an enthusiast as to other people’s. Amelia an 
enthusiast concerning his own, and an infidel as to other people’s. 
Tbe snob looked in the glass, and saw a creature all admirable: the 
gentle-hearted and generous little creature, who always was and al- 
ways would be a gentleman to his very bones, if he could only have 
known it, looked in the glass and saw a snob there. The philoso- 
pher who wrote “man, know thyself,” pointed out to humanity 
one of the two or three roads which lead to the impossible. 

If Kimberley had been less agonized by his own shyness, he would 
have seen earlier what he was forced to see at last. But when in 
nine interviews out of ten he could scarcely speak a dozen consecu- 
tive words, and could hardly endure Ella’s glance for a second, it 
was not to be wondered at that he remained blind so long. It dawned 
upon him at last that she was unhappy, and that he was the cause of 
her unhappiness. 

When once this thought had occurred to him a very remarkable 
thing happened. He besan to look upon her almost without shy- 
ness, and the downright terror of the fancy lent him something very 
like courage, it was not an easy tiling to understand, and he had 
never pretended to be very brilliant. If the prospecct of marriage 
made her thus unhappy, why had she accepted him? He had pur- 
posely left her free. Bit by bit he began to see things clearly. 
Windgall had said that he could take the papers from a relative, but 


168 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’^ 

could not take them from a friend. She was marrying him to save 
her father’s pride after all. 

He saw a good deal of Eila now, and when his eyes were opened 
he had opportunities enough for decision. 

One day he had ridden up to the lodge, and had heard her 
voice in the crisp and silent air. She was speaking to old Hine the 
lodgekeeper, and her voice was clear and cheerful. The lodge- 
keeper’s wife was suffering from some small malady, and Ella had 
herself accompanied the servant who took fruit and wine from the 
castle, and had with her own hands carried the gift into the inva- 
lid’s room. The Santerres were poor, but they could afford to be 
.kindly to their servants, and the Hines had belonged to the castle 
» for two, if not three generations. 

When Kimberley, with his heart, beating as it always beat at her 
presence, or at any thought of her, caught sight of her face, she was 
nodding a smiling good-by to the old. man. She saw Kimberley, 
and the smile fled from her face with so swift a change, and left for 
a mere second something so like terror there, that he could scarcely 
fail to see and notice it. She recovered her self-possession in an 
instant, and when he bowed and dismounted and bowed again, she 
received him in her customary way. The customary way was 
never very flattering to a lover, but it was courteous, if icy, and 
Kimberley had generally been too confounded with his own emo- 
tions to be nice in his observations of her manner. But not the 
proudest and most beautiful of high bred women can be a continual 
terror to even the humblest swain who sees her daily, and since 
Kimberley had begun to see ever so little, his e 5 ’-e 8 grew keener 
though his heart grew sorer. 

“Good-morning, sir,’’ said the ancient Hine, touching his fore- 
head. “ Shall 1 lead the horse up, sir?” 

“ Thank you,” said Kimberley, “ 1 shall be very much obliged. 
You are going back to the castle. Lady Ella?” 

“Yes,” she said, “lam going back.” 

“ May I,” said Kimberley, “ may I — walk with you?” 

“ Certainly, if you •wish,” she answered kindly enough, but 
coldly too. 

“ i want to gsk a favor from you, if 1 may,” said Kimberley when 
they had walked a little distance. He was very cold at heart, and he 
trembled a little, as if the cold were physical. 

“ Yes,” she answered, queationingly, turning a casual look upon 
him. “ What is it?” 

“ I have been so unlucky somehow,” said Kimberley, “ as to 
offend your sister. Can you tell me how 1 have done it, and how 1 
can make amends?” 

His heart was icier than ever. He thought he knew the cause of 
Alice’s altered demeanor, and he was sure that he was on dangerous 
ground, 

“1 think,” she answered, doing her best to smile, “that Alice 
will be your safest guide in that matter.” She knew as well as he 
how dangerous the ground was. 

“ She used to treat me with great kindness,” Kimberley said with 
a feeling as if his brain were turning round and round. “ She is 
quite changed now.” 


^'THE WAY OF TILE WOKLD.” 169 

“lam sorry to hear it,” Ella answered. “ Do you wish that I 
should speak to her?” 

“ Not to say that 1 complained of it,” cried Kimberley, in a nerv- 
ous agony which almost obscured his heartache.. ” 1 dare say you 
have noticed,” he went on, in so much desperation that he scarce 
knew what he said, “ that 1 am never very self-possessed. But I 
was always so much at ease with her, and we were such good friends 
until lately, and — ” 

“ And you think you have offended her in some way?” Ella asked 
him. 

“ I am afraid so,” said Kimberley. 

“ And you wish me to act as peacemaker?” 

“ If you will be so very, very kind.” It was certain that Alice 
disapproved of the match, and he tried to think that in that fact 
might possibly be found a reason for Ella’s unhappiness. It was not 
easy for him, even now that his eyes were being opened, to confess 
all the truth to himself at once. Alice’s disapproval would not ac- 
count for the fact that his coming had that morning chased the rare- 
ly seen smile from Ella’s eyes, and set in its place the transient look 
of fear which he had noted there. But lovers catch at straws a 
drowning man would scarcely seize upon. 

For her part the question trembled upon Ella’s lips, “ Do you 
know the reason of this change?” But she herself knew the reason 
too well to dare to ask him. 

“1 will speak to Alice,” she said, and for a little while they 
walked side by side in silence. 

“ 1 know very well,” said poor Kimberley, after this pause, 
“ that 1 haven’t any claim to her consideration, but — ” 

“You have every claim to her consideration, Mr. Kimberley,” 
answered Ella, with a tone of decision, and something, as he fan- 
cied, of disdain. Whatever else Kimberley might be, he was her 
affianced husband, and the girl had pride enough to rebel against 
the open scorn Alice had shown for him. The human heart is a 
complex thing indeed, and Ella’s sacrifice begot a certain defiance in 
her against those who misunderstood her. And since Kimberley 
was to be her husband, she claimed some consideration for him, and 
rebelled against the estimate Alice chose to make of him, even though 
she herself had always been natively disposed to think less of him 
than Alice had been. She was proud, and it galled her to be pitied. 
She was ready to be sacrificed, but by no means ready to have the 
world look on her as a sacrifice. The sweetest natures carry enough 
of gall within them to make some things bitter, 

A stranger meeting Kimberley, in ignorance of his history, 
would have found a singularly shy and unassuming young man, 
fairly versed in public affairs, speaking in an accent somewhat precise 
and formal, like a schoolmaster’s, and in phrases which were com- 
monly studied before they were spoken; a little man whose breed- 
ing was remarkable neither in one way or another, and about whom 
the one noticeable thing was that he was over-dressed. Kimberley’s 
experience and observations ought perhaps by this time to have 
taught him better, but in that one respect he had learned nothing 
since he had come into his money, and the fancy had fluttered into 
his mind that he might dress himself like Ragshaw if he chose. So 


170 


^‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD/^ 

the shy man still bedizened him like a beatified bagman, and was 
only saved from downright vulgarity by the talent of his tailor. 

He had not been a miHionaire for the better part of two years for 
nothing, and Mr, Loehleven Cameron, and Mr. Amelia, and all the 
other tutors he had had about him, had not labored in vain. Even 
the surprising work on Etiquette — its lessons being chastened and 
modified by experience and practice— had not been altogether use- 
less to him, and Cobbett’s Grammar and the little book on Vulgar 
Errors between them had worked a revolution in his speech. All 
these improvements, with a fortune of a million and a quarter to 
back them, had made a new man of him in outward seeming, and 
he was hj no means what the Earl of Windgall would have called 
“ impossible ” any longer. He had good blood in his veins too, and 
taking him altogether, the most exclusive people he encountered 
were quite prepared to tolerate him. But to himself he AvaS always 
the lawyer’s clerk, and in the midst of his new surroundings, in 
spite of his acquired habits, he felt like an impostor and usurper. 

Alice’s condemnation of his insolence was natural to his mind. 
The young lady herself had never held so lowly an opinion of him 
as that he cherished of himself. 

“ Alice,” said Ella, half an hour after her brief talk with Kim- 
berley, “ I want to asK you to do me a gi'eat kindness. 1 think 
you love me a little, and would do something to please me.” 

“Yes,” replied Alice, “ 1 think 1 love you a little, and would 
do something to please you.” 

Ella disregarded the tone, which spoke pain and anger and re- 
proach. 

“ I want you, dear,” she said, “ to show a little more considera- 
tion to Mr. Kimberley, for my sake.” Alice looked at her with a 
quick flash of tears in her eyes, but as yet said nothing. “ It can 
hardly be pleasant to me,” Ella continued gently, “ that my sister 
should show so open a scorn of the man who is to be my husband.” 

“ 1 liked him well enough till then,’' answered Alice, speaking to 
the thought and not to the word. “ But oh, Ella, that is not the man 
you should marry. You are throwing away all your happiness.” 

“ My darling,” said Ella beseechingly, “ you must show a little 
more consideration for my sake. You forget that in humiliating 
him you humiliate me.” That was almost the only plea she could 
make for Kimberley, and she knew it. 

“ 1 never meant that, Ella,” Alice answered, with tears and 
caresses. “ But I have been so angry, so distressed, so broken- 
hearted. For you, dear. ” 

“ You have distressed yourself needlessly,” said Ella. 

“ Oh, no, no, no!” 

“ Indeed you have. I shall not be unhappy. Let me speak to 
you quite freely and honestly. If a woman were ever free to choose 
her own husband, Mr. Kimberley is not the man 1 sliould have 
chosen. But you do not know much of the world, and papa has 
never made you his confidante as he has made me. You do not 
know under what a miserable burden of debt he has lain. You do 
not know what wretched embarrassments he has had to face. You do 
not know even that if it had not been for Mr. Kimberley’s generosity 
the very trees in the park would have been cut down and sold for 


‘•THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 


171 

timber this winter, and our poverty would have been proclaimed to 
the whole world. Let me tell you, dear, that you may understand 
everything, and may know know how much bound we are to be 
thankful for the good fortune Mr. Kimberley brings us all. Papa 
was so pressed for money fifteen or sixteen months ago that he had 
actually to take my diamonds and borrow money upon them. It 
nearly broke his heart to do it, but there was no escape.” 

Alice had fallen to her knees, and her face was hidden in her sis- 
ter’s lap. She said nothing, but she seized Ella's hand and kissed it. 

“If you will think of these things,” pursued the elder, “you 
will begin to see that 1 cannot be unhappy in having the power to 
banish all this misery. 1 have been his confidante ever since our 
mother died, 1 have seen clearly, ever since then, that his only hope 
was that his children should marry prosperously. You must not 
think me mercenary, dear.” 

“You? Mercenary? No, no!” 

” 1 would not have allowed money to weigh with me for my own 
sake. 1 have been quite candid with you, now, and you must be- 
lieve me when I say again that I shall not be unhappy.” Alice still 
holding her hand, kissed it again and again, and laid her hot cheek 
against its icy coldness. 

Kimberley did not see Alice again that day, but when next they 
encountered, the girl held out her hand to him with something like 
the old franknesss. She also, young as she was, had been taught 
something of the necessary worldly lesson. The millionaire was no 
longer all ogre, but had a strain of the delivering angel in him. 

Want of tact is pretty often synonymous with want of heart, but 
in Kimberley’s case it was the product of pure nervousness. 

” 1 was afraid,” he said, being too much fluttered inwardly to be 
able to let well alone, “ that I had offended you.” 

A man of the world would have spared the young lady the awk- 
wardness of that speech. 

“Young people of my age,” she re'sponded, “have a prescript- 
ive right to be wayw^ard, Mr. Kimberley.” She saw that he was 
about to speak again and checked him for his sake and her own. 
‘‘ Shall we agree to say no more about it?” she asked, and Kim- 
berley did not dare to disobey the injunction thus conveyed. 

But when he had time to think about it afterward, this reconcilia- 
tion, which had come about by Ella’s influence, helped to confirm 
him in that terrible belief which was growing clearer to him day by 
day. The woman he loved so truly, the woman for whose happi- 
ness he would have laid down his life in spite of being such a weak- 
ling, was being sold to him, and Alice, like the rest, was being 
persuaded to see the necessity of the sale. She had rebelled against 
it at first, and was now reconciled to it because it began to look like 
necessity. And though he had meant to leave Ella absolutely free 
and unhampered in her choice, he could see now that he had taken 
the surest means to bind her, through her father’s poverty, and her 
daughterly affection. 

As if film after film, gauze after gauze, were lifted, he saw the 
truth clearly and more clearly. 

He was in his own house at Gallowbay at this time, and at the 
moment when his heavy heart first felt the full weight of this new 


172 ‘^THK WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

truth, he was sitting in a room which had been upholstered by the 
last occupant of the mansion, and was almost completely walled 
with mirrors. It was rather in the French eating-house style of 
taste, to be sure, but Kimberley was not very learned about that 
kind of thing, and he had left the room as he had found it. He took 
now to walking up and down between the mirrored walls, and at last 
caught a conscious sight of his own reflection, and stood still to 
look at it. There was no doubt about it — his aspect was insignifi- 
cant, The fine dressing gown and the gorgeously-beaded slippers — 
he saw himself from head to foot— did nothing to help him, but 
rather to his own mind emphasized the natural disadvantages of his 
aspect. He stood and stared miserably at his own reflection. His 
hair was better trimmed and groomed than it had used to be, and 
his whiskers were less straggling, but the meek, feeble, shame- 
stricken face was what it always had been to his mind W'hen he had 
thought about it. His shyness had never been of that self-conscious 
sort which touches so closely upon vanity, that the difference be- 
tween them is hardly to be descried, but he had thought of himself 
a good deal, and always in a desponding mood. And now, the 
longer he looked at his own reflection, the more dolefully shame- 
stricken and meek the reflection looked back upon him, until all on 
a sudden it went through him like a sword to think of his own mad 
and insolent presumption. There had been actual moments when 
he had thought that Lady Ella Santerre could love him. He hid his 
face in his hands, and his spirit tasted a bitterness of self-disdain, 
such as had never before assailed him. He recalled himself as 
trembling before Mr. Blandy. He knew pretty well what Mr, 
Blandy was by this time, and he remembered that for years he had 
been his servitor. He saw himself in the yellow canary smalls, and 
his fellow dependents upon the charity of the Elizabethan Har- 
ward kicked and cuffed and tweaked him once again, and he sub- 
mitted. Lie swept Blandy’s pfiices, and lit the fires. He lived in his 
own old sordid lodgings, and drew his own wretched pay. He 
walked through Gallowbay streets again, not unnoticed, to his own 
sore-neped fancy, but despised. This was the creature he had been, 
and this was the creature who had dared to insult a noblewoman 
by the offer of his hand, and to browbeat her into acceptance 
through her father’s needs. 

Like abler people, Kimberley could see only one side to a thing at 
a time, and now that remorse and shame had their hour with him, 
he could recognize no excuses, and admit no palliation. He had 
known doubts by the thousand, but now, for the first time since 
this business had had a beginning, he set his feet upon a certainty, 
and he could never dream his delicious dream again, never rise again 
into that ridiculous cloudland into which he had been mad enough 
to soar. 

And now that he was convinced at last of what he ought to have 
known all along, what was he to do? Tell Windgall what he knew 
to be the truth, claim the papers, burn them in the Earl’s presence, 
and give EUa back her freedom? Make over everything to Ella by 
a deed of gift, and run away to some far corner of the world where 
he could never be discovered or heard of? Kill himself, and leave 
her all he had? A thousand j)rojects and fears were in his mind. 


'^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 173 

He loved her all the while, and to surrender her was to give up 
everything. Such a tempest had scarcely a right to rage within the 
bounds of so weak a nature. Such a tragedy as this had no more 
business in the life of a man like poor Kimberley, than an earth- 
quake would have in a flowerpot. And yet it was actually there, 
and the weak heart was riven by it. He loved her, mean as his 
beginnings had been, and poorly as he thought of himself, he loved 
her, and she was in his hands, and would not strive to fly away 
from him. He loved her, and his insolent passion might triumph 
if he would, and no hand but his own would come between it and 
him. 

He locked the door and, sitting down b}’’ a table, laid his head 
upon his hands and cried, with tears of shame and renhnciation and 
despair. There was no doubt or struggle in his mind as to what the 
practical end should be. Ella would be released from her engage- 
ment, and Windgall must be compelled to keep the parchments and 
the papers. Nothing in the whole wide world — not the rack, the 
strappado, nor the stake — should persuade him to take them back 
again. 

If he could have doubted he would have held these thoughts at 
bay. But love gave him clearness of vision, and there was no way 
of escape from the truth. Ella had been loyal to her own sense of 
duty, but she could not hide her own weariness, her own hopeless- 
ness, and Kimberley’s whole training in life, as well as his whole 
nature, had taught him to be quick to find himself unwelcome. And 
indeed, to a heart like his, the discovery of the truth was unavoida- 
ble. He had no power to delude himself into such a sense of his 
own deservings as would make him seem worthy of her. 

“ Slie never cared about the money,” said Kimberley, rising and 
pacing the room with tear-blotted face and disordered hair. “She’s 
too noble, she's too pure, she's too good for this world. She wanted 
to save her father, and she was ready to break her heart to do it. 
But she shall never break her heart through me. No, no. That 
isn’t what 1 had the cheek to love her for, when I was getting thirty- 
five shillings a week at Blandy’s otlice, and it isn’t what I love her 
for now: If I’d been born to the money, and had been a gentle- 
man, it might have been a different thing, but I was a fool to think 
she could ever be happy with a man like me. How could she? Oh 
how could she?” 

And in spite of all the nobilities of the good and jgentle heart he 
bore, he could not help feeling the sting of this inequality, and the 
bitter unfairness of his fate. It was bitter to have been mocked 
with such a dream. It was hard to hold everything in his hand, 
and to be obliged to cast it thus awaf. It was hard to be compelled 
to despise himself so deeply — it was terrible to look at that Alpine 
height of folly his own hands haa raised. 

He did not feel as if he were doing anything heroic — nothing in- 
deed could have been much further from his mind than that— and 
be did not look as if he were bent upon an heroic expedition, when, 
fearful lest his tear-stained face should be observed, he dodged out 
of the mirror -paneled room and into his own chamber. He poured 
eau de cologne into water and bathed his face, to be rid of the traces 
of his tears, and he dressed himself for once without troubling his 


K4 ‘'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

valet. The loud-patterned trousers, the gorgeous waistcoat, the 
egregious tie, the striped shirt with its big cuffs and high collar, the 
white hat, the cloth boots, the primrose gloves, and blue morning 
coat, were his ordinary adornings, and he gave them no thought. 
The gold cable which crossed his waistcoat, the valuable rings 
which clustered thickly on his little fingers, the amazing bull-dog’s 
head of a pin, were all out of keeping with his nature, and, as it 
was to turn out, were curiously unfortunate for the moment, but 
he never gave them a conscious thought. He had grown used to 
them. 

When he left the house on foot, and stole through the grounds 
until he reached the gate which opened on the high road to Shoul- 
dershott Castle, there wgs not one sign of the hero visible about 
him. To the outer sight he was simply a commonplace-looking 
little man of early middle-age, who was fearfully and wonderfully 
over dressed. And yet within the foolish figure there were such 
agonies and such resolves as made a hero of him whether he would 
or no. 

Once or twice he lingered, and once he actually turned back 
again and walked slowly homeward for a hundred yards, but he 
checked himself and faced the castle again, though with a trem- 
bling heart. 

“ It’s no use writing. I couldn’t explain. I must see him and 
face it out. It can’t be so hard for him as it is to me.” There are 
people who could make that refiection consciously, and could take a 
pride in its heroism, but he was not one of them. “ He never saw 
how she has suffered. He couldn’t have seen it, or he wouldn’t 
have endured it. But he ought to have known better ” — this was 
the only thought he had that was not wholly self-accusing — “ he 
ought to have known better than to dream of selling her to a snob 
like me.’” 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

But Kimberley was not the only man in the world who was 
breaking his heart for a woman. Pie was not even the only man in 
the world who was breaking his heart about Lady Ella Santerre. 
Jack Clare had, had times as heavy as those through which the mill- 
ionaire had passed, with this added bitterness — that whereas Kim- 
berley had only been forced to despise himself, Clare had been com- 
pelled to despise the woman he loved, and had once thought (as 
lovers have a knack of thinking), something scarcely mortal. Yet 
this bitter mood never lasted long with him, and he oftener pitied 
than despised her. Sometimes he even arose to an understanding of 
the spirit of self-sacrifice which moved her, and then he had the 
relief of despising the father instead of the daughter. 

He had made all his arrangements, and in ten days the ship to 
wdiich he was to intrust himself and his fortunes would sail. The 
practical man he needed had been engaged with a dozen English 
laborers, the necessary machinery for farming operations was al- 
ready bought and paid for, and was lying at the docks, and now, 
when the hurry and excitement of preparation were all over he was 
left nothing to do but to make his farewell to the few people to 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD/^ 175 

whom he cared to say good-by at all. His mother and Moutacute 
were to say good-by in London and had arranged to spend two or 
three days in town before his departure. Major Heard had also 
undertaken to see him oil. A rather small and exclusive military 
club to which he belonged had bidden him to a farewell dinner, and 
he had written back, with almost the only pretense he had ever 
practiced in his life, to say that every hour before his departure was 
already occupied by its own engagement. He had a full week upon 
his hands, and nothing wliatever to occupy him. 

It was natural that Ella should fill most of his thoughts, for it 
was she who was driving him away from England. Now that the 
time of farewell drew so near he began to be newly tender about 
her, and to be more eager than he had been to find excuses for her. 
She had been cajoled or besought into the engagement by her 
father — frightened into it by the family debts — persuaded into it by 
Alice— worried into it by needy and aftectionate female cousins. For 
all the soreness of his heart. Jack acknowledged the severity of 
the temptation, but that Ella should have fallen into it sickened him 
with all the world. 

And yet, now that he was going away for good and all, his heart 
so yearned over her, that there was but one natural end to all his 
mental tossings to and fro. He was fully resolved never to return 
to England, and to part from her in silence and anger was more 
than he could bear. He must needs go to Gallowbay and say fare- 
well. 

“ I have no right to go,” he told himself. “ I have no right to be 
a reproach to her. But she never cared for me, or she wouldn’t 
have engaged herself to marry a fellow like that. What riirht had 
I ever to suppose she cared for me, except as a sister might? She 
never gave me any. And if I go away without seeing her she’ll 
think 1 despise her, or hate her. I’ll just go down and say good-by, 
as 1 would to any other old friend.” 

He packed his portmanteau, took cab to Euston, and train to 
Gallowbay, and arrived after a tormenting journey. He put up at 
the Windgall Arms, and wrote this letter: — 

” My dear Ella, — 1 am going to New Zealand next week, and 
shall not return to England. 1 should like to see you to say good- 
by. I know we are finally apart, and I have nothing but farewell 
to say, but I want to see you when I say it. 

” Yours very truly, Jack.” 

When he had sealed this, and addressed it, it occurred to him 
for the hundredth time that Windgall might not be pleased at his 
appearance, and for the hundredth time Jack answered that objec- 
tion. 

“ It’s likely enough tnat he won’t want me to see her,” he said 
grimly. “ But I’m going away, and I leave England in nine days 
from now, and if she’ll see me, 1 mil see her.” 

It seemed so probable to his mind that Windgall would intervene 
if he knew of the proposed leave-taking, that little as he liked clan- 
destine ways, he determined not to risk the father’s interference, 
but to send his message privately to Ella. So, with the letter in his 


17G 


••'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

pocket, he strolled out of Gallowbay, and unconsciously quicken- 
ing his pace in answer to the hurry of his thoughts, he swung on 
eagerly toward tlw3 castle. When he came near to the lodge gates 
he felt a sudden inclination to go back again, and abandon his proj- 
ect. Overcoming that prompting of the spirit he puslied aside the 
lesser gale and entered, and there was the elderly lodge-keeper 
standing at his door. Now old Hine knew very well the story of 
Jack’s attachment to his noble master’s eldest daughter, and the 
young man’s appearance here seemed, to his simple mind, ;to for- 
bode a row. But Captain Clare had always been a prime favorite 
with him, as he had been with almost everybody who knew him, 
and especially with servants and hependants. He had had a jolly 
way with him, and a free hand in spite of his narrow income, and, 
better still, a ready ear for any little tale of trouble. A smile for a 
housemaid, a friendly w^ord for a groom or gamekeeper, a spare 
minute for a gossip with a housekeeper — a genial recognition of the 
kinship of flesh and blood — could alw^ays be counted on from Cap- 
tain Clare. All sorts and conditions of men had liked the young fel- 
low% and his smiling face had carried sunshine with it everywhere, 
but now he was quite pale and haggard, and to the lodge-keeper’s 
eyes he looked dangerous. 

“ Ah, Hine,” said Jack, with a cheery voice. “ How do you do?” 

” How do 5^ou do, sir?’' asked Hine in turn, touching his hat to 
him. “ The sight of you is good for sore eyes. Captain Clare.” 

“ I’m going to New Zealand next week,” said Jack, walking into 
the front room of the lodge and looking about him. 

“ New Zealand?” said Hine. “ Not to stay there, sir?” 

“Yes, to stay there,” the youngster answ’-ered, flushing a little. 
“ I’m leaving England for good and all. Where’s Mrs. Hine?” 

“She’s laid up, sir,” said Hine, “with a baddish cold. It’s 
turned out a bit feverish. She’s been abed a week. ” 

“ I’m sorry to hear that,” said Jack. “ You must say good-by 
for me.” 

“ Thank you, sir, I will,” the lodge-keeper answered. “ She’ll be 
grieved to have missed you, sir. New Zealand?” Jack’s news was 
an evident astonishment to him. 

“ Look here, Hine,” said Jack, producing the letter with a blush, 
“ I want this to go up to the castle. I want it to go privately. You 
understand. I don’t think his lordship particularly wants to see 
me here,” 

“ 1 understand, sir,” Hine answered, as he turned the letter over 
in his hands. 

“ Do you think you can manage to deliver it yourself?” All this 
was not very dignified, and he could have wished that he had 
walked straight up to the castle. 

“ I can try, sir.” 

“ If you can see her say 1 am in the King’s Avenue.” He put a 
sovereign into the half reluctant hand. 

“ 1 es, sir,” said the old man. “ I’ll manage it if I can. You’ve 
growed a little thin, sir, if you’ll excuse me saying so. I’ll go up at 
once, sir. The poor young feller is hard hit,” said the ancient Hine 
to himself. “ The King’s Avenue? All right, sir,” he said aloud, 


‘‘THE WAT OF THE WORLD. 177 

and Jack with a nod swung out of the lodge and made at a rapid 
pace across the park. 

The old man walked up to the castle, and the mournful lover 
marched on to the King’s Avenue, where two great lines of elms, 
vast in girth and venerable, ran alongside each other for nearly a 
quarter of a mile. Here he paced up and down impatiently for an 
hour, and grew despairing, and full of rage and old tenderness and 
unavailing yearning, insomuch that he felt a desire to smite his head 
against the tree which stood nearest. In this compound miserable 
mood he walked eagerly to every opening through which Ella might 
by any possibility approach, and glaring down each walked eagerly 
on to another. In his eager impatience he continued this wild ram- 
ble until he was hot and tired. 

Now as the destinies which ruled this business ordained events, 
Kimberley’s resolve had failed him for the moment. Perhaps, to 
speak more truly, he failed to see his best way through the painful 
interview which lay before him, and in his incertitude he had 
turned aside and with bent head and a heart full of unhappy 
thoughts had wandered through the park for an hour or more until 
he came upon the identical avenue in which Jack Clare was raging 
up and down. 

Kimberley stood between the boles of two great trees, and, him- 
self unobserved, saw a strange gentleman prowling up anil down 
the avenue, in a mighty hurry, which at first looked altogether 
purposeless. Clare and he had never met, and, except by hearsay, 
were perfect strangers to each other. Kimberley had not even so 
much as seen Jack’s portrait, but the unsuccessful rival had been 
made acquainted with the successful rival ’s features by Sylvester’s 
lifelike caricature, and would have been pretty sure of him any- 
where. Meeting him here he was bound to know him. 

Without the remotest suspicion of the stranger’s identity Kimber- 
ley watched his hurried and self- contradictory movement, and was 
at last awakened to the conclusion that the gentleman had lost his 
way and was in a hurry to find it. It was always at a cost of much 
nervous pain that he made up his mind to address a stranger, but 
he was one of the kindest hearted men in the world, and so, with 
his usual tremors, he advanced. When he had followed Clare a 
little way the younger man turned, caught sight of him and, stop- 
ping dead in his hurried walk, looked at him at first with amaze- 
ment and then with scorn. The wild idea crossed him that the earl 
might have intercepted the lodge-keeper, learned his errand, and 
then sent the accepted lover to warn a poacher from his domain. 

“ 1 beg your pardon,” said Kimberley, raising his white hat and 
speaking with a nervous blush and tremor, ” I thought you might 
have lost your way.” 

Jack stood still and eyed him from head to foot. His glance took 
in the whole of Kimberley’s vulgar glories, and the extraordinary 
dog’s head pin, with its ruby eyes and jeweled collar, would on 
another’s figure have provoked him to inward laughter. As it was, 
he smiled with an exceedingly bitter aspect, eyed the little man 
from head to foot once more, and, turning short upon his heel, re- 
sumed his walk, with his hands in the pockets of his shooting 
jacket. He had not wanted any witness of his last farewell to Ella, 


178 


""THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

and that this man, of all men in the world, should appear at this 
moment was savagely galling, 

Kimberley thought the stranger’s behavior remarkable, and even 
insolent. 

“ I shall be very happy to direct you, sir,” he said, notwithstand- 
ing. 

Jack turned his head and looked at him once more with a face of 
unmistakable disdain, and then sauntered on a second time without 
a word. This unaccountable behavior excited in Kimberley’s breast 
as much ire as he was capable of feeling. 

“ I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, following Jack’s sauntering 
footsteps, “I did myself the honor to address you,” This time 
Jack did not even turn his head, but walked on quietly, as if uncon- 
scious of the other’s presence. Within he was boiling over, but he 
gave no sign. “ Perhaps, sir,” said Kimberley, who had scarcely 
ever been so wrathful in his life as this curious reception of his 
politeness made him, “ you are not aware that this is private prop- 
erty.” 

Now Jack, who was by nature a sweet-tempered man, had been 
sorely tried for many a day. He was expecting Ella all the more 
eagerly because he more than half despaired of her coming, and to 
have this witness of their meeting was simply and purely impossible. 
Would no scorn of manner give him a hint to he gone? He scarcely 
dare trust himself to speak, but he turned and looked a third time at 
the little millionaire, and again walked on in silence. There was 
nothing to be got out of a row with Bolsover Kimberley, and angry 
as he was his own sense of dignity made a scene unlikely. 

“ Perhaps, sir,” repeated Kimberley, growing actually exasperated 
at the stranger’s disdain, “ you are not aware that this is private 
property.” 

Then Jack Clare turned upon him swiftly. 

” Pardon the question,” he said with savage suavity, ” but, pray 
sir, are you often mobbed?” 

” No, sir,” retorted Kimberley, not being able just then to find a 
better answer, and half inclined to think he had a madman to deal 
with. 

“Excuse me again,” said Jack, “but do you desire to be 
mobbed?” 

“No, sir,” replied Kimberley, more fiercely than he had ever 
spoken in all his meek life, until that moment. 

“ Then why do you wear that scarf-pin and those clothes?” de- 
manded Captain Clare. Tlie downright insolence of the question 
soothed him. He did not wait for an “answer, but walked on, as if 
once more sublimely unconscious of Kimberley’s presence. 

“ You are an insolent fellow, sir,” cried Kimberley, behind him. 
“ You are an insolent fellow, sir.” Jack walked on regardless of 
his wrath. “Ho you hear, sir?” said Kimberley, fairly enraged, 
and forgetting even to be astonished at the courage he displayed. 
“ 1 tell you that you are an insolent fellow, sir.” lie was small and 
shy, and meek enough, heaven knows, but even he could resent so 
bold an insult. 

“ You pestilential little cad,” cried Jack, wheeling round upon 
him, and letting out all his wrath at once. “ Go home!” 


179 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

“ Cad, sir!” answered Kimberley, facing him in ruffling indigna- 
tion. ” Whom do you call a cad, sir?” 

” I call any man a cad,” said Jack, ” who goes about with a suit 
of clothes like that.” 

It was not a polished shaft, but it went home, and, as Carlyle said 
of Balaam, ” an ice-taloned pang shot through brain and pericar- 
dium.” Jack walked on, and Kimberley stood rooted to the 
ground. He had not a word to say in answer, and he had scarcely 
even a conscious thought, but he stood crushed and overwhelmed 
beneath the sense of his own humiliation. His fineries had been the 
one thing on which he had relied to make himself look like a gentle- 
man, and he knew now what they made him look like. 

He could have wished the ground to open beneath his feet and 
hide him. He did not see that the stranger had hurriedly left the 
avenue for one of the spaces leading out of it, and he was so bitterly 
wounded that his heart had no room for anjThing but the feeling of 
this new mortification. He thought of Ella, and tears of shame and 
misery rose with a keen pang of pain to his eyes. Had she always 
seen him as a patent and transparent cad? Had she gone about with 
him knowing that he was thus labeled to the eye of every lady and 
every man of taste who beheld him. What else was he? Oh, what 
else 'was he? He gave one helpless look about him, seeing things 
all bluiTed in the sunshine through his tears, and walked down the 
avenue, with the thick fallen leaves rustling about his feet. By and 
by he came upon a little arbored seat, almost hidden by autumnal 
foliage of many colors, and pushing the luxuriant boughs aside he 
entered the arbor. Many and many a time he had reproached him- 
self with bis owm unworthiness — that very day he had proclaimed 
himself a snob — but there is the widest difference between the con- 
temptuous things a man may say of himself, and the contemptuous 
things another man may say of him. Shame, shame, shame, raged 
through his heart, gust after gust. He felt no resentment now. 
There was no room for resentment. He knew that the insult which 
had been flung at him bad passed unspoken through the minds of 
scores of men in his presence, and could believe that it had many a 
time been spoken in his absence. The dreadful truth had been 
thrown at his head in a fashion downright brutal, but he knew it 
for the truth and it crushed him. 

He had cried bitterly that morning to think of all he must 
surrender because of his own unworthiness, and the passion of his 
self-sacrifice had opened a freer channel for his tears. And his heart 
being still sore and tender from that recent suffering, there w^as noth- 
ing for it now but to sit in this little arbored retreat and to cry anew 
for this fresh misery. Bear with him for a minute and with me, 
who tell the story of so weak a creature. 

Jack Clare had scarcely spoken those savage and contemptuous 
words when he saw Ella approaching at a little distance and moved 
swiftly away to meet her. The uppermost sentiment in his mind 
was one of rage, a sort of sick fury of contempt and wonder (hat his 
goddess should have stooped to such a man as he had just seen, and 
should have stooped for money. But as he drew nearer, and saw 
how pale and mournful her lovely face had grown his heart smote 
him, and he advanced gently. As he took her hand in his and 


180 "'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

looked at her, Bolsover Kimberley faded from his mind, and all 
anger vanished. 

“ You got my note,” he said; “ you knew that I was here?” 

“ Y’es,” she answered. “ 1 could not refuse you, but you com- 
promise me by coming in this way. Come to the castle, and see 
papa, and say good-by to him.” 

“ I was wrong to come at all, perhaps,” he answered. “ But 1 
couldn’t help it. And 1 couldn’t have you think 1 went away 
gloomy, or changed at all. If you hadn’t seen me you might have 
thought from what I said when 1 saw you last that I was going 
away with a broken heart, and that I was imbittered against you.” 

She was afraid of herself and of him, and with downcast eyes she 
walked on slowly, he moving at her side. 

“ You are going to New Zealand?” she said lifting her e;^es to 
his face for a mere instant. “ You have given up your career in the 
araiy?” 

“If anything had been stirring,” he answered, “I might have 
stayed, but in these piping times of peace 1 have grown tired of the 
army. I have bought land in New Zealand, and I am going out to 
work it. In a few generations it will be valuable — it’s absurdly 
small in cost at present, and 1 have bought five thousand acres. It 
will be something for Montacute’s descendants. There is no reason 
why the Montacutes should always be.poor, but somebody must put 
his hand to the plow, and the Fates choose me. The old condition 
of things is getting a little worn here, and a new one is gradually 
growing. We must work like the rest of the world.” 

These were not the things which were uppermost in his mind, but 
it was safer to speak of them than of his real thoughts. 

“ I am sure you are right,” she said. “ I have often thought that 
if I had been a man I would have chosen such a career for myself.” 
They walked on a little further in silence, their feet rustling in the 
dead leaves. There was a sense of something guilty and contraband 
in this meeting to both their minds. “ Y^ou will say good-by to 
papa,” said Ella almost beseechingly. 

“ Don’t ask me to do that, Ella,” Jack answered. “ He and I are 
best apart. I might have known — I did know, well enough — that 
this was likely to be a painful meeting to both df us, and I might 
have spared you. But I was selfish, darling. I am going away. I 
shall never see you any more, and I wanted some memory of a last 
word.” 

The tears stood so thickly in her eyes that they half -blinded her, 
but she looked up at him in spite of them, and spoke simply and 
bravely. It was no time for pretenses. 

“ I should have been grieved if you had gone away without a good- 
by. I hope you will be prosperous and happy. ’ ’ 

“ Don’t think,” said Jack, beginning to see that her burden -was 
heavier than his own, “ don’t think that 1 am going away to brood 
and to be unhappy. I had my dream. I shall never forget it, but 
I am not going to be unhappy about it. And you’ll think of the 
Antipodean farmer at times, won’t you?” The attempt he made to 
say this jollity was a failure so complete that it almost broke him 
down. 


WAY OF THE WOELD.’^ 181 

“ 1 shall think of you always as if 3 ’-ou were a brother.” Cold 
comfort to Jack’s breaking heart, yet something. 

They stood in silence immediatelj'^ in front of the arbor into which 
Kimberley had retired. lie could see them, himself unseen, but 
there was no way of escape for him. He saw and heard and under- 
stood. The stranger who had so w^antonly insulted him was Ella’s 
lover. , 

“ I won’t say it isn’t hard,” said Jack. ” One doesn’t even see 
the same stars there. But it has to be borne, and I shall bear it. 1 
shall be a better man foi having known you. 1 never loved another 
woman, and I never shall.” 

“Go now,” she said, with silent but fast-raining tears. “We 
shall always think of you.” She scarcely knew what words she 
used. “You will come back again to England when the pain is 
over. ’ ’ 

“ That will be never,” said Jack, groaning in his speech. 
“ Never! No, my darling, it’s good-by for good and all. We shall 
never see each other again in this world.” Do what he would, his 
voice quivered. “ 1 haven't the heart to go, yet go 1 must. Good- 
by, dear. Good-by.” 

He stretched out both hands, and she laid hers within them. They 
stood thus, scarcely seeing each other for their tears, and suddenly, 
with a passionate gesture^ he drew her to his breast and kissed her. 
Her head fell back from his shoulder, and looking down upon her 
he saw that she had fainted. He held her in his arms and called 
her name, but she gave no answer or sign of answer. The blue lips 
and colorless face frightened him, and he said stonilj^ to himself, “ 1 
have killed her.” He laid her gently down upon the grass, and 
supporting her head upon his arai, looked down upon her in an 
agony of fear and self-reproach. 

Then his mood changed. 

“ Curse the money-bags that came between us,” he cried wildly, 
and began to chafe her hands within his, and to moan above her. 
“ Damn the heartless man that broke her heart and mine. Darling, 
look up.” He kissed her hands and chafed them, and his hot tears 
fell upon her unconscious face. 

All this Bolsover Kimberley saw and heard. His were the money- 
bags that brought down the curse. He could almost have foqnd it 
in his heart to curse them too. What Imd they done for him but 
make him wretched ? He had been happier without them. And he 
loved her — he loved her as dearly as the man who knelt above her. 

Love and money. They make and unmake most of tbe troubles 
of the world. 

By and by Ella began to revive, and Jack to murmur soothing 
foolish words to her. When she realized the situation she tried to 
rise, and he helped her tenderly to her feet. 

“ You can’t walk yet, dear,” he said. “ There is a seat near here 
somewhere, a little arbor of a place. You had better rest there for a 
time.” He took a step— he had need to take but one — and laid his 
hand upon a bough. “ This is the place. Sit here a while, and 1 
will go,” said Jack remorsefully. “ Forgive me for the pain 1 have 
given you. 1 was a coward not to go without seeing you at all.” 

Kimberley stood with clasped hands and indrawn breath. He had 


182 ^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

never known anything like the agony of that moment. But all three 
were spared the discovery of his presence there. 

“ No,” said Ella feebly. “ I am better here. I am quite strong. 
Good-by, dear. Leave me now. Good-by.” 

“ 1 can’t leave you like this,” he said. ” You are not fit to be left 
alone. Let me help you back; if only for a little way, let me help 
you.” 

She yielded to his pleading, for in truth she could not walk un- 
aided, and they left the place slowly, she leaning on his arm, and he 
bending tenderly and protectingly over her. 

They had scarce quitted the avenue when there came upon them 
no less a personage than the Earl of Windgall. He stood for one 
minute in the paralysis of astonishment, and then advanced swiftly. 

” Captain Clare?” he said sternly, and looked from Jack’s sud- 
denly-lowering face to Ella’s, with the trace of tears upon it still. 

“ Captain Clare, my lord,” said Jack sardonically. ” Lady Ella 
is unwell. I can surrender her to your care. ” 

” May 1 ask,” said his lordship, his gray face much grayer than 
common, and his eyes glittering, “ to w^hat I am indebted for your 
presence here?” 

“ I am going to New Zealand — ” Jack began. 

“Oh!” said my lord, ” is this the way?” 

” I came here to say good-by to your daughter, my lord. 1 leave 
England next week, and I do not purpose to return. I will ask you 
to remember that we two were bred like brother and sister.” 

“We can part without more words, sir,” said Windgall. 

“ Very well,” responded Jack, “ Good-by, Ella, and God bless 
you always. Good-by, my lord.” 

There were bitter words on the lips of both Clare and Windgall, 
but they parted then and there, and nothing more was said between 
them. 

“ Ella,” cried the earl when Jack ^s stalwart figure had disappeared, 
“ was this meeting an accident on your part, or did you deliberately 
endure the scandal of that man’s presence here?” 

“ Pray choose another tone, papa!” she answered, with a manner 
gentler than the words. “ 1 met him because he asked me to see 
him and to say good-by.” 

Windgall, for excellent reasons of his own, forebore to say more 
just then. • 


CHAPTER XXV. 

For a long time after the sound of the rustling footsteps had died 
away Kimberley stood in the little arbor, and surrendered himself to 
his own emotions. At length he wiped his eyes with an’expression 
of new resolve, picked up his white hat, which had fallen upon the 
sward at his feet, and, pushing his hand through the leafy screen be- 
fore him, surveyed the avenue. Finding that the coast was clear, he 
emerged from his shelter, and fixing his hat tightly with both hands, 
walked toward the castle. His face was an epitome of all unhappy 
emotions, his eyes were red and swollen with tears, his features were 
beseared and soiled from the same cause, and every now and again 
an involuntary sob escaped him, but in spite of all these signs of 


^'THE AVAY OE THE WORLD.” 183 

weakness he walked like a man who knew his purpose and was reso- 
lutely hent upon it. 

There were two or three roads between the King’s Avenue and the 
castle, but the nearest lay through the gardens’ and he chose it, 
partly because it was the nearest, and partly because he felt himself 
less likely to be seen upon that way. He was in no fit state to be 
seen, but he was so filled with his own resolve as to be oblivious of 
his appearance, and his thoughts so galled him that he walked 
more and more rapidly. 

Alice, who was pacing up and down a graveled pathway with an 
unread book in her hand, thinking dismally of her sister’s future 
saw Kimberley at a distance, and guessed by his gait that he was in 
some way agitated. As he came nearer she saw the unmistakable 
signs of his recent tears, and wondered. Kimberlej'-, catching sight 
of her in turn, bore down upon her swiftly, with an aspect so wild 
and unusual that the girl was more than half afraid of him. When 
he reached the place where she stood, he was panting from the speed 
at which he had walked, and a great sob broke from his breast as he 
halted with clinched hands and disordered air before her. 

“ Mr. Kimberley,” she cried, ” what has happened?” 

Kimberley moved his head from side to side like one in extreme 
pain. 

” I came here to-day,” he began, ” to see Lord Windgall. I have 
found out what a mistake 1 have made, and 1 meant to tell him of 
it.” 

Had he lost his fortune? Had he decided that he could not spare 
— or would not spare — that ninety thousand pounds of which Ella 
had spoken? The girl was as far from being mercenary as she well 
could be, and yet these guesses shot through her mind in an instant. 

” I don’t want to speak ill of his lordship to you,” he continued 
less wildly, ” but it was cruel not to let me know. It was cruel to 
her, ten thousand times more cruel to her than it was to me, but 
I suppose he knew that if he had told me I should have gone away. ’ 

The urgent misery of his voice, and the pained wa}" in which his 
head moved from side to side, indicated to the girl such a depth of 
suffering, that she pitied him in advance with all her heart, but his 
words meant nothing to her. 

” You alarm me, Mr. Kimberley,” she said. “ But I do not un- 
derstand you. Pray, compose yourself. Can 1 help you in any 
way?” 

” Miss Santerre,” said Kimberley, ” you were the very first 1 ever 
spoke to. Until that night on the lawn when 1 first told you, 1 had 
never said a word to any human being. You said, ‘ Go straight to 
her and ask her for a plain answer. That’s what you’ll do if you 
have the courage 1 gi^e you credit for. ’ But you never knew where 
you were sending me? Tell me you never knew where you v/ere 
sending me.” 

“ 1 did not know it,” she answered, suddenly chilled and in arms 
against him. “ 1 did not guess it.” 

” I’m glad of that,” he said wretchedly. “ I have never liked to 
think that you would have said it if you had known.” 

“You are speaking of your engagement to my sister, Mr. Kim- 
berley?” she demanded. “ 1 can see that you are greatly agitated. 


184 


‘'THE WAY OF THE WOULD. 


it 


but you must surely know that you are speaking very strangely. 
You must know that this is a remarkable thing for you to say to me. ” 

“ I was such a fool, ’’pursued the hapless Kimberley, “ as to think 
I might be able to make her happy. Do you think 1 would ever 
have spoken a word to break her heart if I’d known what I was 
doing? I thought I could make her happy.” 

“ And has she told you,” Alice asked, with a sense almost of ex- 
ultant hope, despite of his visible suffering, “ that you could not do 
so?” 

“ No,” returned Kimberley. ” Bhe hasn’t toldmeso, but 1 know 
it, 1 knew it before this afternoon. I knew it this morning, and I 
was coming here to say so. But I know it better than ever now.” 

“You wnre coming this morning to release Ella from her engage- 
ment?” If that were true, it was indeed a thing to be grateful for, 
for Ella’s sake : but what of her father’s embarrassments ? Of course 
she would not stoop to speak one word of this to Kimberley, but the 
thought of the blow which his renunciation of his claim upon her 
sister’s hand would deal her father, mingled a sense of terror with 
her feeling of relief. 

“ Yes, ” Kimberley answered. ‘ ‘ I was a fool to think that I could 
ever make her happy. ’ ’ 

That he had really and truly loved her, the girl had pity enough to 
see, and it broke his heart to surrender her. She understood that it 
was love which impelled him to this sacrifice, and a man with so 
good a heart, she thought, could scarcely be merciless to her father. 
This hope had hardly entered her mind when she despised it. 

“ Mr. Kimberley,” she said, after a lengthy pause, “ 1 am very 
inexperienced and young, and ignorant of the world. This is a mat- 
ter of great delicacy, and 1 am quite unable to advise you. I am 
not quite sure that it is right in me to encourage you to speak of it. 
1 feel as if 1 were eavesdropping, and had surprised a secret. Don’t 
you think you had better speak first to papa about it?” 

“ Did you know, ” asked Kimberley, in a certain stony and un- 
interested way, “ that Lady Ella had a sweetheart?” 

” Mr. Kimberley!” 

‘ ‘ Did you know, ’ ’ he went on, in the same strange way, unchecked 
by her exclamation, “ that there was somebody she cared for? Did 
you know that they were both breaking their hearts, and that he 
was going abroad for good, and all because she was going to be 
married?” 

” If these things are true,” she answered him, with a hauteur that 
not all her pity could suppress, “ there is all the more reason why 
you should not speak to me any further. You must see,” she con- 
tinued, in answer to the troubled amazement with which he looked 
at her, “ that 1 cannot listen to any story of my sister’s secrets, un- 
less she herself tells them to me. I am afraid that you are the victim 
of some strange misunderstanding, Mr. Kimberley. You had better 
see papa at once.” 

“ I’m glad you didn’t know,” he answered. “I couldn't help 
thinking that you’d have been kind enough to her to tell me if you’d 
known. I’ll go and see his lordship, now. I’m very glad you 
didn’t know.” 

Alice stood looking after him as he walked to the castle, and a 


185 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.'’ 

score of conjectures passed through ^er mind. As for Kimberley 
there was but one strand in him whica was not broken for the time. 
Nothing but the unconscious sense of honor held the rest of his senses 
together. Ella must be freed from the wretched obligation she had 
taken upon herself in obedience to th<^dictation of her father’s needs. 

At the entrance to the castle a liveried servant met him and stared 
at him in so wild a fashion that evef\ Kimberley noticed it, and be- 
thought him of his own condition. ' 

“ Where is his lordship?” he asktid stoutly, though there was a 
hint of breaking in his voice. 

The obsequious flunky led the wpe^ to the library. They were not 
often visited by moneyed people at iShouldershott Castle, and Kim- 
berley had been lavishly generous to ,^his servants, who were there- 
fore overwhelmingly polite to him, allbj^ugh as a matter of course, 
they knew their place a great deal too w^i^.^ot to despise him. 

“ There’s somethink hup,” said this parjjcular gentleman to his 
chum and companion, when he had parteid from the millionaire. 
” Old Windgall’s just come in with the ipillyinhairess as is to be, 
lookink as black as the ’ob and she a cryink, and now the lawyer’s 
clerk have put in his appearance, and him la cryink also. Blubber- 
ink, by gad,” the noble creature added, ” like a bull-calf ! Him and 
old Windgall’s in the librar}". Before 1 could get out of the room 
his lordship sings out, ‘ My dear Kimbly ’ (says he), ‘ what in the 
name of Hevans is the matter with you?’ 1 suppose the little snob 
had fell down and hurt hisself.” 

” Lady Ella wouldn’t ha’ cried at that, I fency,” returned the 
other noble creature. ‘‘Not if he’d ha’ broke his neck, i don’t 
know what the aristocracy is a coming to.” 

” The erristawcracy?” cried number one, with a look of mingled 
pity and disdain. “ The erristawcracy is going to the daywil!” 

it is hard to feel that one’s Order (as a distinguished lady novelist 
always calls it) is deteriorating. One must belong to the Order to 
feel the full force of the grief. 

The earl was alone when the noble creature opened the door for 
Kimberley, and he arose in some amazement and disturbance at his 
prospective son-in-law’s forlorn appearance. 

” My dear Kimberley,” cried his lordship, “ what’s the matter?” 

” My lord!” said Kimberley, ” I expected you to act to me like a 
man, to say nothing of a nobleman.” 

“'Sir?” said his lordship, in such wrath and astonishment as he 
had rarely felt in his life. 

” Perhaps,” said Kimberley, “lam too hasty, and if 1 am I beg 
your pardon. But I don’t think you could help knowing it, and if 
you did know it — ” 

” Know what, sir?” cried Windgall. 

” Did you know, my lord,” asked Kimberley, “ that Lady Ella 
was breaking her heart because she was to marry me?” 

“ Really — ” began his lordship in a tone of haughty expostulation, 
but he got no further. 

“You didn’t know it?” demanded Kimberley. “ I should be 
glad to think you didn’t know it. I should be glad to think it was 
all a blind mistake.” 

“ This is all veiy extraordinary,” said his lordship, angry, and 


180 ^‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

humiliated, and almost despaii^ane: all at once. “ May I ask what has 
inspired you with this extraordinary belief?” 

” I can only tell you partly,” answered Kimberley He had no 
feeling of shyness now. “ I ran only tell you partly, but I know it. 
I guessed it days ago, and now^I know it.” 

“ Have you spoken of this au'ange supposition to Lady Ella— to 
my daughter?” Windgall askefl him. 

“No, my lord,” said Kin berley. “I was coming straight to 
you, but I met Miss Santerre dn the way, and 1 spoke to her about 
it.” 

“ Great heaven!” exclaimed PWindgall. “You spoke to a child 
like that on so delicate a suspicion. 1 am amazed, Kimberley! 1 
am amazed!” 

“My lord,” said Kimberley, “when 1 first came and spoke to 
you about this 1 broughji'some papers, and asked you to take them 
from me as a friend, if i may use the word between a nobleman and 
a man like myself.” ^ 

“There has never been any doubt about your claim to use the 
word,” returned Windgall, “ since we have known each other.” 

He was a kindly man'Ynough by nature, and had no w ish to be 
cruel to his daughter, but it was hard to think that the wu’eck of all 
his hopes was near and unescapable. He could not think so alto- 
gether as yet. 

“Thank you, my lord,” said Kimberley. To say “my lord” 
often fell in with his ideas of state, and some degree of stateliness 
seemed essential. “ But I remember that you told me afterward 
that though you might take them from a relative you could not take 
them from a friend. I’ve thought since then th^t, perhaps, in spite 
of all 1 said, you thought I had bought those papem to have you in 
my grasp. 1 am not a gentleman, my lord, but 1 hope 1 am above 
that. I w^as very poorly reared, my lord, but 1 never did a cruel 
thing in my life. 1 couldn’t. 1 was attached to Lady Ella long 
before I had any money, and 1 shall never care for anybody else. 
But 1 was a fool to think that I could ever make her happj'", and I 
resign my claim upon her hand, my lord, and I must leave your 
roof for ever.” 

If there was something of a touch of melodrama in Kimberley’s 
last words he did not know' of it, and Windgall was too agitated to 
think of anything but the matter of his speech. 

“ Stop, sir,” cried the earl in a rage of embarrassment and de- 
spair, but tolerably cool outside in spite of all. “ I have a right to 
more explanation of this astonishing resolve on your part, and 1 
must have it.” 

“ The only explanation I can give, my lord,” said Kimberley, “ is 
that this engagement is breaking Lady Ella’s heart.” 

An absurdly overdressed, meek little man, with his hair in ridic- 
ulous disorder and his face besmeared with tears, might well be sup- 
posed to cut a poor figure in the eyes of a man of WindgalTs breed- 
ing and ways of thinking, but notwithstanding his disadvantages 
there was something almost dignified in Kimberley’s aspect at this 
moment. His self-sacrifice and his inward sense of right lent him an 
air of simple manliness. 

“ This conversation is necessarily painful to both of us,” said the 


^'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’' 187 


earl, who felt and saw the change. “ i^ut may I ask the foimdatioii 
of 3 ^our belief?” 

“ My lord,” said Kimberley, “ I’m aKhid 1 can’t tell you every- 
thing, but I have watched for days past, ?fcnd I was sure before — ” 
“ Before what?” Windgall’s heart gcew hot at the thought that 
Kimberley might have known of Clare’s visit, might even have seen 
that parting at which Ella had shed tearK 

“1 beg pardon,” answered Kimberlc^l “But I can’t answer 
you. But what I say is true. 1 am not §1; for her7 my lord, and all 
the money in the world could never make i^e worthy of her. If I had 
always been a lawyer’s clerk it would ha't^ been better for every- 
body. I beg your pardon, my lord. 1 had" ao right to insult you 
by reminding j^ou of that.” / 

“ Do you know, Kimberley,” said his lordship, “ that the break- 
ing of an engagement like this, an engageinont of which all the 
world is cognizant, is an insult to my daughter ahdto me; an insult 
on which the world may place any miserable interpretation which 
pleases it. ” _ ) 

' ‘ ' 'I am very^^orry, but I can’t 


1 


“My lord,” returned Kimberley, 
break Lady Ella’s heart.” 

“What did Alice say to you when you broached this fancy to 
her?” Windgall asked. “ Did she confirm it?” 

“-ISTo. She said it was a matter of great delicacy. She said she 
couldn’t advise me. She said 1 was wrong to speak to anybody so 
young and inexperienced about it — perhaps I was.” 

“Surely you were wrong,” said his lordship. “Kimberley, 1 
cannot help believing that your supposition is altogether groundless 
and absurd. 1 know Ella too well to suppose that she would accept 
so serious an offer without having well weighed her own intentions, 
without having consulted her own heart. 1 declare to you, Kim- 
berlej^ 1 swear to you, that no pressure was brought to bear upon 
her, that I was simply and purely your embassador in the matter.” 

“My lord,” answered Kimberley, “1 don’t charge you with 
wanting to sell your daughter’s happiness. I hope you never saw 
how wretched the match made her. I hope—” 

“ How — how dare you, sir?” stammered Windgall, in an anguish 
of wrath and shame. 


“ I can’t say what 1 want to say,” said Kimberle 5 ^ “ If 1 had 
been clever and well-bred it might have been different. I was 
wrong to come here at all, my lord. It was no place for me. I was 
a fool. It was a shame to ask a lady like Lady Ella to marry a man 
like me. I won’t help to break her heart, my lord. I can’t. I 
won’t do it. Not if I break my own a million times over.” 

The earl sat down and beat his foot upon the carpet. It was true 
enough. It had been a shame to ask Lady Ella to marry a man like 
this, and yet the man was a gentleman when all was said and done, 
it was plain he loved her. His very surrender of her with that tear- 
stained face was proof enough of that. 

“ By heaven, Kimberley!” cried his lordship, in spite of himself, 
“ you are a noble-hearted fellow. And I never thought so highly 
of y^ou as at this moment. Understand me! I am not pressing my 
daughter upon an unwilling suitor. I am only trying to heal a 


188 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


breach and to prevent a dreadful scandal. 1 do not believe that my 
daughter would be unhappy as your wife.” 

“ She would only break her heart, my lord, ” answered Kimberley. 
“That’s all.” He began to breathe hard again, and though he 
fought against it with all his might he could not repress a sob. “ I 
sha'n’t be in a fit state to speak at all if 1 stay here any longer,” he 
added huskily, “ and so I’ilask you to excuse me for all the trouble 
1 have caused you, and I’w say good-by, my lord.” 

He bowed and he was g;one. The earl’s visions crumbled, as he 
sat and looked at them. K'o gilded grandeur for his favorite daughter, 
no ease from debts and /mns for him. No possibility of the accept- 
ance of those papers .now. He was bound in honor to send them 
back again, and Kimberley would feel, even if no resentment awoke 
in his mind as the final result of his self-sacrifice, that he had no 
right to refuse them,. In point of fact, whatsoever Kimberley might 
do, the earl saw the absolute impossibility of an acceptance of the 
magnificent offer. He felt to the full how hard it was to have to 
make such a sacrifice to honor. He knew pretty surely that if he 
destroyed the papers, Kimberley would make no claim' against him. 
In a certain sordi'^d way he had a full right to destroy them. But he 
knew that he had not acted too honorably already, and the tempta- 
tion never had a second’s real strength for him. Yet it was not an 
easy thing to part with the papers. 

It was" not easy either to know that he had to take the news to 
Ella, and he was in anything but a pleasant humor when he finally 
compelled himself to seek her. 

“ Ella,” he said, “ 1 have forborne to speak to you as to one of 
the events of to-day, filled as 1 was with surprise and alarm. But 
another thing has happened of which, unfortunately, i am compelled 
to speak. Mr. Kimberley has become possessed of the idea that the 
engagement into which you entered with him is utterly distasteful to 
you, and he has called upon me in a state of distress of which 1 can 
convey no idea, to release you from your engagement. You know 
best,” he added desperately, “ what ground there is for his belief.” 

8he looked at him and could see that he was too keenly wounded 
by his own disappointment to be in a mood for justice. 

“ You know best what ground there is for his belief,” his lord 
ship repeated. 

“ 1 cannot tell,” she answered wearily, “ what ground he had. I 
tried never to afford him any. ’ ’ . 

“ This match,” he asked, “ has been distasteful to you all along?” 

She looked up at him as he stood before her, and he caught in her 
glance a weary surprise which stung him to the quick. For Ella’s 
part, she was so sore-hearted, and he seemed so little to regard her, 
that for a moment she half despised him. Then came the reaction, 
and she felt ashamed of that natural sentiment, and hastened to 
atone for it. 

“ 1 tried to show no distaste, papa,” she answ’ered. 

“ But you felt it?” he demanded. “ Y^ou yielded to his offer for 
my sake? You thought so ill of me as to believe that I was willing 
to sacrifice you altogether for the sake of Mr. Kimberley’s money?” 

But after all ‘Windgall was not cut out for the rOle he was trying 
to play, and his daughter’s submission smote him sorely. 


189 


'^THE WAY OF THE WOULD/’ 

“I had never thought it ■was what seems to have been,” he 
said. “ I never thought it possible or likely that you would form a 
romantic attachment.” He laughed, slio^ly and savagely, as he 
said this. “ But I did think that you would find certain compensa- 
tions, and that you could have been fairly iiappy. If 1 had thought 
you likely to be unhappy, 1 would never have taken his offer into 
consideration for a moment.” She was flilent, and her silence was 
like an accusation to him. The events of \the day had scarified his 
nerves, and he was more sensitive than common. “ Do me the jus- 
tice to believe that, Ella,” he said, walkW from the end of' the 
room and pausing before her. \ 

“ I know it, papa,” she answered. “ I am ^re of it.” 

In effect there was nothing more to say, thcr^gli much more was 
said between them. The leal wrench came to yVindgall that night 
when he sat down in his library ana packed upai^ sealed the papers 
Kimberley had given him. 

“ My dear Kimberlej^” he wrote, “ you will und^-iVstand the abso- 
lute impossibility of my acceptance of the documents which accom- 
pany this letter. Much as 1 regret the unhappy evjent of to-day, I 
must ask your permission to say that you have acted', throughout in 
a most magnanimous manner. ” 

After all, the Earl of Windgall could not help being a gentleman, 
though the rust of poverty had corroded spots about him. 

The receipt of this letter added another drop to the bitterness of 
Kimberley’s cup, which was full enough of distasteful ingredients 
already. He had cut himself off from the last chance of serving the 
woman he loved so dearly, "What was his money worth to him ? If 
Ella could have taken it, if she would have taken it, he could have 
handed over every penny without one thought, or chance of a 
thought of regret. He would have gone back to his clerkship, and 
could have been almost happy if only she would have taken the 
money and been brilliant aud bright and happy with it, even at a 
distance from him. These thoughts are not to be taken to the foot 
of the letter as here expressed, perhaps, but he honestly thought they 
were. The one passionate longing of his soul was that Ella should 
be happy. As for him — the poor little hero— w^h at did it matter 
about him? He had been a charity boy; he had been an errand boy 
in Blandy’s otfice; he had been a clerk in B]and3"’s office for many 
a dreary year; people had been used to think little of him, and he 
had grown used to think little of himself. What right had he, of 
all men in the world, to be a millionaire, when that peerless lady, 
the daughter of a long line of people nobly bred and gently nurtured, 
could feel the pinch of poverty? 

The proud man’s contumely, and his own, and the pangs of de- 
spised love, rankled, how terribly, in the poor heart. He could well- 
nigh have died for shame; he could well-nigh have died for pity of 
himself. He was ashamed to show his bleared eyes and scalded 
cheeks, and the servants knew that something was amiss and gos- 
siped and w’ondered, as he knew they would. Everything hurts the 
hurt; everything, like the hand of the Irish schoolmaster in Hood’s 
poem, “ smites his scald head that is already sore.” 

But all on a sudden, in the midst of his tears, Kimberley stood 


190 '‘THE WA\^ OF THE WOltLD.*’ 

up, in the astonishing dressing gOAvn and smoking cap, and clutched 
the papers that lay on the table before him. 

“ I can do something for her after all,” he said. “ And I will. 1 
will. I’ll do it, if it bredks my heart.” 


cllAPTER XXVI. 

Mr. Amelia sat at lupcheon in the revolving chair witli a liaV- 
tinished article by one pi the specially retained and specially paid 
members of the staff of ‘‘The Way of the World ” before him. 
He took his measured, dose from his medicine bottle, and his regu- 
lated bite from his^iiidwich, and dangled his little legs with an air 
of genuine enjoyment. Even in the midst of his leisure he took up 
a pen at moments find added a casual sentence to the special article. 
He v/as seated a/one, but in the next room the Scottish graduate, 
his private secretary, was busily engaged in writing out a lucubration 
which Mr. Amelia, in the person of another of the specially retained 
and specially pi^id, had just dictated to him. These two non-exist- 
ent people were worth ten guineas a week between them to the little 
editor, and tc think that he was earning that ten guineas in a 
single day was like wine and meat to him. At times he smiled to 
himself, and once or twice he nodded with an almost exultant self- 
approval. So much could brains do in this world, when the owner 
of the brains knew his way about, and was ready to take advantage 
of the chances which his good fortune or his own shrewdness un- 
earthed for him ! 

The sound of a knock at the door broke in upon his comfortable 
reflections. 

“ Come in!” cried Mr. Amelia, and the office boy thrust in his 
head. He was a boy of a confidential turn, and yet seemed always 
to guard himself as if to say that all his communications were made 
without prejudice. 

“ There’s a gentleman wants to see you, sir,” said the boy. 

“Name and business?” replied Mr. Amelia curtly. The boy 
withdrew, and the editor, having first corked the medicine bottle, 
hid the half-tihished materials of his feast beneath a little pile of 
loose proof sheets. Before this was well done, and the proof sheets 
were re-arranged to Mr. Amelia’s satisfaction to look as if nothing 
were beneath them, the boy returned, bearing a card of thick and 
dog’s-eared pasteboard somewhat soiled. Upon this was written, in 
a painful hand, the name of Mr. Augustus Yidler, and the editor 
glancing at it intimated that Mr. Vidler might enter. 

“Good afternoon, sir,” said Mr. Vidler, who wore the air of a 
man with a grievance. “ I have got, sir, something of a complaint 
to make, and we thought we might as well, sir, come to the foun- 
tink-ed at once.” 

“Oh!” said Mr. Amelia setting his hand upon the table, and turn- 
ing himself in the revolving chair until he faced his visitor. 
“ Something in the nature of a complaint?” His voice and manner 
implied a humorous disdain, and Mr. Vidler responded to them 
with a labored severity. 

“We do not desire, sir,” he said, “to throw anything in the 


THE WAT OF THE WORLD. 


191 


(( 




way of Mr. Webling’s prawsaparity. Webling is a old and 

vallyhned friend of ours, and we wish him well. Nobody wislies 
Webling better than I do, sir.” ' 

“Twill ask you,” said ]\Ir. Amelia, with more than his usual 
crispness, “ to make whatever comm\micatiops you have to offer me 
as brief as possible. He moved a hand toward the papers on the 
table. “ 1 am busily engaged.” 

Mr. Vidler bowed with stately courtesy. 

“This,” he answered, producing a crurhpled paper from his 
pocket, “ is a cawpy of your newspaper, sk^ At our little social 
gathering, sir, where you once did us the hoimr to be present, there 
was several pieces of news from this paper €hs<^^^ssed last evening, 
sir. It was obsuv’d that from the first the '^shjmibble hitems in 
your newspaper was mostly the hitems discussed in our little circle. 
To make the story short, sir, Mr. Webling were ta^ed with a breach 
of confidence, and though he defended hisself ‘vV^th a degree of 
argument, he were evenchally overpowered.” 

“Indeed?” said Mr. Amelia coolly. “This is alwery interest- 
ing to your friends and yourself, 1 have no doubt, but jl don’t quite 
see how it concerns me. Mr. Webling had certain i^iformation in 
his hands, and found a market for it. If all of you wont to be paid 
as well as Mr. Webling, it is no doubt very natural, but you can’t 
expect me to pay you. ” 

“Sir,” returned Mr. Vidler, “you are prodigious mistaken. 
That is not our object. ” • ' 

“ Will you be so good as to come to your object?” demanded the 
little editor. “ I have told you already that 1 am busy.” 

“We consider, sir, that our confidence has been abused,” said 
Mr. Vidler. 

“ Very well,” said Mr. Amelia, taking up a pen and dipping it in 
the inkstand. “ You must deal with Mr. Webling.” 

“ Mr. Webling have already made the amend honorable,” replied 
the visitor, “ and have undertook to purchase a piano for the use of 
the club out of his misgot funds.” 

“ And that, I suppose, is why you don’t all want to be paid. 
Very considerate indeed. Will you kindly let me know at once 
why you come to me with this interesting history?” 

“ 1 was requested, sir, by the committee of the club,” said Mr. 
Vidler, “ to call upon you, sir, and to complain of the way you have 
acted, sir. 1 was instructed to say, sir, as your conduct was un- 
called for in a gentleman.” 

“Very well, Mr. Vidler,” said the little man, smiling outright, 
“ 3 ^ou have relieved your conscience. 1 admit that it is very hard 
upon you that Webling should have been employed, but then, you 
see, Webling was known to me before you. If I had known you 
before I knew Webling you should have had the job. You know, 
from your own sense of wounded virtue, how much that would have 
saddened Webling. Good afternoon, Mr. Vidler.” He arose from 
the revolving chair and opened the door. “George, show this 
gentleman out. You have expressed yourself with perfect clearness, 
Mr. Vidler, and I quite understand you. You needn’t take the 
trouble to say another word, thank j'^oii. Good afternoon.” 

Mr. Vidler finding himself, much to his own surprise, outside the 


192 '^THE WA Y OF THE ^VORLD.’^ 

office, saw nothing for it .but to go about whatever other business he 
might have in hand, and Mr. Amelia returning to his seat in the 
revolving chair, disinterred the sandwich and the medicine bottle 
and proceeded to dose liimself anew, with alternate carefully meas- 
ured supplies of solid aiad liquid. He had received the news of the 
rebellion of the Retired Suvvants wdth creditable sang-froid, but he 
felt very much as a general may be supposed to feel when he hears 
news of the loss of a cherished position. Since the first issue of the 
journal many means of acquiring news about the doings of the aris- 
tocracy had been put ih his way, but Mr.Webling had been his prin- 
cipal point of information, and since that fountain was cut off, his 
supplies bade fair to run unpleasantly short. In spite of his own 
brilliant editorship ri’ the journaal, and in spite even of the four or 
five special articles he contributed to it weekly, under as many 
aliases, “ The Wey of the World ” seemed to take no great hold 
upon the people Except by means of its fashionable gossip, which 
was universally" admitted to be very intimate and interesting. He 
knew very w'^^l that he would suffer if the journal lost Mr. Web- 
ling’s services before a substitute of some sort could be found for 
them. 

“ 1 must find somebody to take Webling’s place at the Club meet- 
ings,” thought Mr. Amelia, and he was just saying as much half 
aloud, when it occurred to him that possibly Mr. Webling himself 
might still be brought to deal with him for a week or two until new 
arrangements could be made. About last night’s meeting, for in- 
stance, it was necessary to have something, to save the fashionable 
columns from almost absolute bareness. 

So with no great hopes, but detennined to try his best, the little 
man put on his little overcoat and gloves and his well-brushed tall 
hat, and set out on foot for Waverley Terrace. Mr. Webling looked 
guilty when* he saw his sometime lodger, and admitted him with a 
stealthy air as if he were under espionage. 

” I am in a bit of a hurry for copy this week,” said Mr. Amelia, 
thinking it best to profess ignorance of all that had happened, and 
to throw the necessity for explanation altogether on Webling’s 
shoulders, “ and since 1 happened to be in the neighborhood, 1 
thought I’d look you up and see if you had anything ready.” 

i\Ir. Webling mournfully rubbed his hands together and shook his 
head. 

“ The club have forbid any further correspondence, sir,” he said. 

“ The club?” said Mr. Amelia, with natural surprise. “ i^Oiat 
do you mean?” 

“ it were from the club, sir,” returned Mr. Webling, with a gen- 
tle melancholy, ” that I received my infamatiou. There were a row 
last night, sir, so to speak, at Vidler’s — preaps you may recollect 
Vidler, sir — and 1 were called upon to retire from the sassayety.” 

” Excuse me,” said Mr, Amelia, with a spice of satire in his voice, 
” but you don’t express yourself with your usual clearness, Webling. 
Try to let me understand you, if you please. W'hat was the row 
about — and who made it?” 

“As for the row, it were Bordler — if you recollect Bordler, sir 
— as began it. Bordler produced a copy of your paper, sir, and read 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 193 

out a number of bitems which was undouihtedly the subject of dis- 
cussion at our last week’s meeting.” 

” Aha!” said Mr. Amelia, as if a light b^pke in upon him sud- 
denly. “ And the club objects to any memlb^ making public use 
of the conversation held at its meetings?” J 

“ Parry cisaly,” returned Mr. Webling. \ 

“ Aha!” said Mr. Amelia again, contempMively this time. “ And 
how much notice do you propose to give ni^ before you break off 
your engagement?” 'I 

” Why, sir,” said Mr. Webling uncomfortr^ly, “ the thing is hev- 
idently hat a hend, sir.” He was so car^hl to be polite that he 
breathed on all the aspirates almost stertorous!^. 

“ Can’t be,” returned Mr. Amelia. ” Must llaye something to go 
on with.” The forbidden correspondent shook i^s head. “Non- 
sense,” said the editor in reply to this gesture. “ ThevClub isn’t your 
only source of information, you know, Webling.” j 

“ Why no, sir,” said Mr. Webling, with a hopefuj;4winkle in his 
eye. “ Hi can’t exactly say it his, sir,” \ 

“ You go about, you know,’ continued his employers’ “ You hear 
things outside the club. If some of the things you hekr outside the 
club happened to be talked about in the club afterward ‘ is that your 
fault?” 

“ 1 dare not go so far as to say that, sir,” replied Mr. Webling* 
“ No, sir. ^ Not so far as that, sir.” 

“Not so’ far as what?” demanded Mr. Amelia, with some asperity. 

“ My fellow members would diskiver it, sir, if it waskerried on so 
far. Perhaps, sir, the cream of things,” he suggested, bending for- 
ward with his arms depending before him as if he held a tray and 
proffered the cream of things to Mr. Amelia — “ perhaps, sir, the 
cream of things skimmed off of the evening meeting, just a item 
here and there, sir, of the very best, and the rest put in next week 
when it had had time to get talked about, and so to speak be com- 
mon property.” 

“Oh, dear, no,” Mr, Amelia answered, decisively, “nothing of 
the kind would suit me. 1 don’t want the buried bodies of old scan- 
dals dug up and brought to me. 1 want fresh information. Now 
what can you give me this week? Outside the Club, of course.” 

The greatest of men unbend at times, either from nature or for 
policy, and Mr. Amelia actually winked at Mr, Webling. Mr. Web- 
ling smiled a feeble smile in answer, and fell to rubbing his hands. 

“ It can’t be much, sir,” he said, with a sheepish look. 

Mr. Amelia produced his note-book, and Mr. Webling guiltily 
whispered in his ear. The little man transmitted the substance of 
the guilty whisper to Mr. Pitman’s system of shorthand. 

Suddenly the rapid pencil paused, and Mr. Amelia looked up with 
a start of surprise. 

“ What did you say?” he demanded, 

“ The millyinghair, sir,” said Mr. Webling, “ Kimbally— Bulsover 
Kimbally, sir, have quarreled with the Hearl of Wingle, and have 
left the Castle, Shouldershott Castle, sir.” 

“Yes, yes,” said the little editor. “I know. At Gallo wbay. 
What did they quarrel about?” 

This, it appeared, was more than Mr. Webling knew with any de- 

7 


194 “THE WAY OE THE WOKLD.” 

gree of accuracy. Buf/lie poured into the ears of Mr. Amelia some 
garbled version of the story of the Honorable Captain Clare, and he 
knew that Captain yiare had had a farewell interview in the park 
with Lady Ella, anA supposed that Kimberley had become aware 
of it. . 

“ It came direct Ip Bordler,” said Mr. Webling, “ from Tollget, 
the hearl’s liown mails There’s no mistake about it. There have 
been a reg’lar shindy, and the nubble hearl is hup the spout this 
time beyond a doubt^/sir.” 

Ah!” said Mr. Aih;elia, thoughtfully. “ I’d give an extra pound, 
Webling, to know the truth of this. Do you know— what’s his 
name?— Tollgett?- -the earl’s own man, as you call him? ’ 

“ Hintimate!” said Mr. Webling. “Bordler as good as said as. 
Tollgett were cpming to town at the close of the present week, and 
would be present at the club’s next meeting.” 

“ Could you find him out and bring him,' to me?” asked Mr. 
Amelia. “ h would make it worth your while. It would be worth 
a pound apiece to you. ” 

It was natural for Mr. Amelia to suppose that if Kimberley had 
quarreled with the Earl of Windgall he would like, in any reasona- 
ble and safe manner, to have a dig at the Earl of Windgall; and if 
the Honorable Captain Clare had been courting the young lady to 
whom Mr. Kimberley had been engaged, it was natural for Mr. 
Annuelia to suppose that Kimberley would like a dig at Captain 
Clare. If one could not laud one’s self and damage one’s enemies it 
was scarcely Worth while to be proprietor of a journal at all. It 
never occuiTed to the little man that he would be doing anything but 
the one thing agreeable and desirable to his proprietor if he found 
out uncomfortable things to say about the Earl of Windgall and 
Captain Clare, provided always that the news of their quarrel was- 
fairly confirmed. 

Mr. Webling thought it possible that Mr. Tollgett, the earl’s own 
man, might be induced to visit Mr. Amelia, and promised to do his 
best to meet with him in the course of the week. The little editor 
having milked Mr. Webling until that gentleman would yield no^ 
more, departed. The fashionable gossip was certainly attenuated 
that week, but Mr. Amelia was a journalist in full practice by this 
time, and thoroughly undemtood the art of arranging the greatest 
possible number of words around the smallest possible modicum of 
meaning, so that the average number of columns got filled in one 
way or another. 

It turned out eventually that Mr. Webling was unable to catch 
the precious repository of all the information Mr. Amelia desired to 
secure, and on the eve of the next meeting of the club he waited upon 
the editor to announce his failure. Something of the journalist’s 
enthusiasm in the dissemination of news had touched the flunky. 
It was a pity, he said, for as things were turning out the matter was 
growing more and more interesting. The Earl of W indgall was in, 
town, and Tollgett was with him. Tollgett would undoubtedly be 
at the meeting next evening. As Mr. Webling understood matters, 
a devout understanding had been made to that effect. 

“ You’ll be there as well?” said Mr. Amelia. 

Mr. Webling admitted this, but he had run to the end of his tether.. 


195 


'^THE WAY OF THE WjORLD.” 

He dare give no more information. He was again suspected, and 
the members were wrathful against him. The meeting was to be 
held at his own house, in the usual rotation, and he had received 
notice that he would be called upon for a solemn promise to supply 
no more news to “The Way of the World “ from the club. In 
brief, Mr. Webling dreaded the total loss of his social position, and 
though Mr. Amelia, in his zeal for his employer’s interests, offered 
an extra sovereign, the Retired Suvvant stood firm. 

“ Wait a minute,” said Mr. Amelia, brushing his upright hair 
into unusual disorder, as he took an agitated pace two about the 
editorial room. “The meeting to-morrow night h in your own 
house, you say?” | 

“Yes, sir,” assented Mr. Webling, “ in my own hoi)se, sir.” 

“ If you could let me get the news I want,” said Mr, Amelia, de- 
liberately and slowly, “and could swear with a clear conscience 
that you had never seen me after the meeting, nor con^^municated 
with me after the meeting, either by writing or by messenger, and if 
I gave you forty shillings for it, would you do it?” 

“ I am not a miracle, sir,” said Mr. Webling, humbly^^ “ If I 
was, 1 wbuld.” \ 

“ 1 suppose,” said Mr. Amelia, “ that the conversation is bound 
to turn upon this question?” 

“ Suttin to,” responded Mr. Webling. 

“ 1 remember” — Mr. Amelia approached' Mr. Webling and took 
him thoughtfully by the coat — “ 1 remember a china closet, or 
something of the kind, below the stairs. A little window opens into 
It from the room in which you meet. A window pretty high up in 
one corner of the room.” 

“Yes, sir,” replied Mr. Webling, obviously puzzled. 

“If 1 were there,” said his late lodger, impressively, “ I could 
slip down from my old room and take my place there without you 
knowing anything about it.” Mr. Webling looked extremely 
doubtful. “You can swear you have not seen me,” said Mr. 
Amelia, with his own nice sense of honor in full play, “ and can 
speak the truth. You can swear you have not in any way communi- 
cated with me after the meeting, and speak the truth. Come, I’ll 
make it fifty shillings. Three pounds. Beyond that 1 can’t afford 
to go.” 

Mr. Webling hesitated, wavered, fell. 

A good hour before the time fixed for the meeting on the follow- 
ing day, a little upright figure marched with assured step through 
the mist and slush of Waverley Terrace, Waverley Road, N., and 
pausing to tap at the door of No. 158, was admitted with something 
of a clandestine air. 

“There is a fire upstairs, sir,” said Mrs. Webling, “and the 
daily papers.” 

Mr, Amelia nodded in response, and mounted the staircase, and 
Mr. Webling, whose countenance was unusually pallid, and whose 
hands trembled perceptibly with apprehension and excitement, car- 
ried up a lamp, and pointed out to his visitor that the shutters were 
so secured that no light issuing from the chamber could apprise his 
later guests of the fact that it had an inmate. 

“ The risk is rely dreadful 1” said the landlord, upon whose fore- 


196 "'THE WAY OF THE AVORLD.” 

head stood a cold moisture which confirmed his own professed reck- 
oning of the situation. “ Three pound is dear at this price, sir, and 
it is only for a old lodger, and a person which always behaved hand- 
some, that 1 would undergo it.” 

” Pooh!” said Mr. Amelia, scornfully. “ Don’t be an ass, if you 
can help it, Webling. If you can’t help it, be an ass somewhere 
else.” 

“For Evan’s sake, sir,” said Webling, in a whisper, “don’t 
speak so loud.” Mr. Amelia snorted disdainfully, and began to 
read the paper. ' “ I beg your pardon, sir,” the wretched host went 
on a moment $ater, “but if 1 am not to hold any communication 
with you aftcjr this, perhaps you might let me have the three pound 
now, sir.” 

Mr. Amelia produced a purse and paid the three pounds at once, 
and then ^preserved a silence so obstinate, and read the paper so 
busily, that the landlord having expended upon him many unnoticed 
adjurations to be careful, withdrew with burglarious stealth, and 
closed the door behind him. 

In a while rappings and ringings at the front door began to an- 
nounce the arrival of the guests, and the little man with his own 
door ajar listened for the name of Mr. Tollgett. It came at last, and 
he heard Tollgett hailed by a dozen voices, one after the othef. It 
was evident that Tollgett was to be the pihe de resistance of the even- 
ing. At least as much as that was evident to Mr. Amelia, who had 
a knack of making up his mind with some rapidity, and hated to 
lose time over anything. 

When the time arrived for Mr. Amelia to steal down-stairs, and to 
take his place in the china closet, he experienced, in spite of himself, 
many qualms of fear, and could almost have wished tliat he had not 
undertaken the enterprise. If any one of the guests should emerge 
and should discover him, it would certainly be excessively unpleas- 
ant, and the thought that the Retired Suvvants, as a body, might 
even have recourse to personal violence sent an uncomfortable thrill 
through the little man’s heart. But everybody knows (at least in 
theory) how strengthening an infiuence a sense of duty has it in its 
power to lend, and Mr. Amelia was bent upon doing his duty to his 
employer, and was resolved to make the duty profitable to himself. 
When he had made things as unpleasant as he could for the gentle- 
men with whom his employer had quarreled, he would be able to 
tell that employer with how much zeal and cunning he had worked 
in his behalf. It was not likely that Kimberley would grumble at 
having to pay pretty liberally for this service, and to be loyal, and to 
make loyalty pay was comfortable. 

No ill-timed exit on the part of any one of the guests led to Mr. 
Amelia’s detection, and he gained his place in the china closet in 
safety. 

“ Kext week, gentlemen,” Mr. Bordler’s voice was heard clearly 
through the little window-frame, “ we shall meet on our own per- 
manent premises, and our friend and host for the present evening 
have made the amend honorable by the purchase of a piano for our 
use. As appointed by the committee 1 have secured a young feller 
to attend regular tor eighteen pence a evening, his smokes, and being 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 197 

a total abstainer, bis ginger beers. Messy ers Mall and Snell and me 
bas beard tbe young feller perform with tbe highest gratilicaiion. ” 

“ Where’s that draught come from?” said a gruff voice v;hen the 
applause which followed this announcement had died /away, and 
almost as,soon as the words were spoken the window wi^ somewhat 
roughly closd. The voices reached Mr. Amelia’s ear in ^ indistinct 
murmur, and he dreaded the frustration of his scheme.r> Carefully 
drawing a chair to the side of the dresser he mounted in the half 
gloom of the place, and pushed the window open a little way^ 
with the tips of his finger. The voices came back 4 gain in a 
gush of sound. The members of the club were indulgi& in un- 
restrained converse for the moment, and nothing was clearly audi- 
ble to the listener. An extraordinary cold and searching! air wan- 
dered about Mr. Amelia’s little legs, and crept about his bgck and 
into his ears, and being but lately transported from the warm com- 
fort of. the fireside in the upper room he began to shiver. It was 
undeniable that the draught of which the gruff voice had com- 
plained found its way through that small window. 

Fearing lest it should again be closed he stood and shivered, and 
listened until the conversation grew more scattered, and by and; by 
Mr. Vidler’s voice was heard. 

“ Tpllgett,” said Mr. Vidler, “ everybody is anshus to hear youh 
news.” 

A murmur of subdued applause circulated about the chamber. 
Mr. Amelia strained his ears and stood on tiptoe. 

“ Well, gentlemen,” said somebody, whom he rightly supposed to 
be Mr. Tollgett. ‘‘ The proceedings at our house has certainly been 
peculiar. As everybody knows alread}^ — ” 

” Cuss that draught,” the gruff voice broke in, and the window 
was slammed to with sudden violence. Mr. Amelia, whose fingers 
were resting on the ledge, was so severely pained that he could 
scarce repress a cry. I’or a minute he was so busily engaged in 
sucking the damaged places and squeezing them under his arm to 
take the pain away that he forgot the purpose of liis presence there, 
but recovering from the first extreme of anguish in a while, he 
pushed the window gingerly open once more. Mr. Tollgett still 
had possession of the ear of the house. 

“ Of course the gell is compromised, and though you might have 
fancied that Kimbly would ha’ put up with any sort of damaged, 
goods to get into a family of title, he showed more spirit than I ever 
give him credit for, and threw her over then and there.” 

” What sort of feller is he?” asked one of the listeners. 

” Well,” said Mr. Tollgett, in a tone of high-bred refinement, 
“ he’s a low feller, of course. He was a charity boy, and after that 
a dirk in a lawyer’s awfis. He’s freeish with his money, now he’s 
got it. Last time I see him in Gallowbay, he stopped me and give 
me a ten pound note — prob’ly mistook it for a liver, but 1 did not 
undeceive him.” The assembled gentlemen laughed. 

“I should think,” said one, “as W. would be glad to let the 
captain have her now, if he would take her.” 

“The captain knows a trick worth two of that,” replied Mr. 
Tollgett, whose voice spoke not only of a high-bred refinement, but 


198 ‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD/’ 

of a certain half tolerant weariness of the world and its ways. ‘‘ The 
captain is going to New Zealand.” 

“ Zealand?” said two or three together. 

Yas, ’ said Mr. Tollgett. “ He’s bought land there, so they say, 
and he’s a-going to farm it. It’s time the Montacutes did something. 
They’re as poor as Job, the whole kit of ’em.” 

“ And TV hat sort of a cove is the captain?” demanded the person 
who had asked for a description of Kimberley. 

“ The captain?” replied Mr. Tollget, with a tolerant little laugh. 

Well, gentlemen, the captain — ” 

Won’t this winder keep shut, Mr. Webling?” cried the gruff 
voice, angrily. “ Rely, before the gentlemen of the club is invited 
to a mecvber’s house, the member ought to see that the house is air- 
tight. ” ^ 

Mr. Amelia withdrew his fingers hastily from the ledge. In his 
desire to hear he was standing on tiptoe and had need to hold on 
somewhere to support himself. 

1 am afraid, gentlemen,” said Mr. Webling, in tremulous tones, 
“ that the latch is broke inside. With your permission 1 will go and 
look at it. 1 am sure, gentlemen, that uothink has been undone on 
my part to make the proceedings comfortable. ” 

With this, Mr. Webling, after some difficulty, squeezed himself 
from the room and Mr. Tollgett continued, but the listener was con- 
fused between his expectation of the landlord and his attempt to 
catch the meaning of the speech, and so made out but little. By 
and by Mr. Webling, with a shaking finger at his lips, came stealing 
in, and mounting on the dresser by Mr. Amelia’s side made two or 
three pretenses at an attempt to fasten the window. 

” Won’t it hold?” demanded the gruff-voiced man from within. 

“ No,” said Webling, pushing a pale face through the orifice. 

“That style flve-and-six,” said Mr. Yidler, beholding him thus 
framed, and the members of the club laughed readily, like men who 
are satisfied with a small dose of humor at a time. 

Mr. Webling retired, and Mr. Amelia spent the rest of the evening 
in a prolonged and harassing warfare with tlie gruff-voiced man, 
who, whenever the listener pushed the window gently open, pushed 
it roughly to again with the point of a walking stick, so that the 
editor’s mental notes of the meeting were necessarily somewhat 
scattered and mutilated. He made out enough for his purpose, 
however, and more than enough, and be went home that night and 
wrote an article under the simple title, “"An Episode in High Life.” 
Nobody ever wrote an article more pungent or more satirical. He 
fully exposed all the villainies he had heard attributed to Captain 
Clare, and he chaffed the Earl of Windgall in the most airy and en- 
gaging manner. Though he named no names and drew no faces it 
was impossible for anybody with a knowledge of society to escape 
the meaning of the article, and when he came to see it in print, Mr. 
Amelia was delighted with it. It was undeniably brilliant, and so 
suavely caustic in its tone, that the writer felt he had gone beyond 
his own reputation and exceeded his own common powers. 

The article appeared. It stirred the town. People talked about 
it everywhere, and Mr. Amelia heard a hundred allusions to it in 
omnibuses and railway carriages. But before it was twenty-four 


^THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


199 


hours old be received a visit from Mr. Webling, who was paler and 

been even on the night of the meeting 
Great Evans sir I” rriorl 


Ti TiT^ vvuuiu Keep on a-cjosmg. 

. ® matter?” asked Mr. Amelia, striving to preserve an 

air of calm. ° ^ 

*‘ Matter?” cried Webling. “ Good Lord, sir, it wasn’t Captain 
Clare who sold that broken- winded horse, nor him that lorded the 
check.^ Nor him that run away with the undertaker’s daughter 
Nor him that plucked young Roquefort at Baden-Baden. Nor him 
that had the duel with Count Petit-Pousit. ” 

“ It wasn’t?” gasped the editor, seizing the back of the revolving 
chair, and lurching with it like a man at sea. 

“No!”'.gasped Webling in reply. “They’d stopped talking 
about Captain Clare before a word was said of them things. It was 
Captain Stracey of the hundred and ninety-second ridgement. 1 
was afraid something would happen with that winder.” 

“ Thank 3mu, Webling,” said the editor, recovering his self pos- 
session in some degree, though his head still spun with the shock of 
this intelligence. “I have pinched my fingers in more ways than 
one,” he added, surveying his own bruised finger tips. 

“ If 1 was you, sir,” said Webling, “ 1 should hook it. They’ll 
make a criminal case of it, everybody says, and as likely as not it’ll 
be a matter of five years.” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

Kimberley, with the fateful legal papers arranged in a dispatch 
box, dared to drive over to Shouldershott Castle, but was met at the 
lodge gates with the news that his lordship had that morning set 
out for London. 

“Do you know when he will come back?” asked Kimberley 
meekly and coufusedljg of the ancient Hine. 

“It was understood, sir,” answered the lodge- keeper, “that he 
was to be away a fortnight.” 

“ Dear me!” cried the millionaire, in a startled voice. “ A fort- 
night? I shall be too late.” His eyes and nose were red as if with 
influenza, but his cheeks were extremely pale, and his whole ex- 
pression was tired and haggard. He sat in indecision for a mo- 
ment. “Is his lordship at Portman Square?” he asked in a little 
while. 

“The town house is closed, sir,” said Hine, and named the 
hotel in which his lordship was staying. 

“ Thank you,” said Kimberley absently, and sat there still for a 
full minute. Then he turned round with a manner which bespoke 
a new resolve. “ Drive to the railway station at Gallowbay. 

The groom just touched the mare with his whip, and away she 
started. 

“ Looks worried, the poor little chap does,” thought Hine, look- 
ing alter the slashing dog cart. “1 thought no good could come 
out of Captain Clare’s coining here. It’s a pity m«ney gets into such 


200 *-THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

hands. If it had befallen to Captain Clare things might have been 
pleasant, now.” 

Kimberley did not know how nearly the popular guesses hit the 
truth, or he might have been unhappier even than he was. There 
was one respect in which they never for an instant came near it. 
Nobody guessed the part that Kimberley himself had played, but 
then he did not look likely to play the hero, and popular opinion 
does not so often exalt gratuitously as it degrades without reason. 

As it happened, the dog-cart reached the Gallowbay railway sta- 
tion in easy time for the second London express. 

“Drive home, now,” said Kimberley to the groom, “and tell 
Weekes to pack a portmanteau and to come to London by the next 
train.” The gi'oom drove off, and Kimberley, with the dispatch 
box in his hand, walked up and down the station platform. The 
manager of the Gallowbay Bank and the vicar of the parish were 
there amongst others, and they and everybody else who knew him 
saluted the shy little man as he paced the flags. He was member 
for the borough, and the local personification of money, and the re- 
spectful salutations were a thing of course, but somehow of late 
Kimberley’s mind was always dwelling on the meanness of his ear- 
lier life, and these tokens of consideration from the people he had 
been used to look upon with awe, stung him as severely as they 
had done when he first began to receive them. It was an immense 
relief to him when the train reached the platform and he could hide 
himself in a first-class carriage in which no one else was traveling. 
He felt very wretched and cold and insignificant. The more he con- 
templated the amazing audacity of his own daring in respect to 
Lady Ella, the more humiliated and the more insignificant he felt, 
until his self-abasement amounted to an actual agony. His heart 
was ice and lead, and it ached persistently with a real physical pain. 

He reached London at last, and drove to the hotel in which the 
Earl of Windgall was staying. His lordship was abroad and had 
left no word of the probable hour of his return. Kimberley sur- 
rendered his dispatch box to the care of the hotel manager, and 
wandered the streets dismally until long after nightfall, calling now 
and again to inquire if Windgall had yet returned. It was after ten 
o’clock when he caught sight of the earl in the act of stepping from 
a Hansom cab to the pavement. 

“My lord,” said Kimberley advancing. Windgall turned with 
almost a jump. “ 1 called at the castle this morning and they told 
me you had gone to town. I want very particularly to speak with 
you. Can you give me a few minutes?” 

“ Certainly,” said his lordship. “ Ceitainly.” My lord’s heart 
was beating like a hammer, and he was asking himself already how 
he should yield to Kimberley’s persuasions. He had done his duly 
and had sent back the precious documents honorably, and he knew 
that Kimberley was here to force them back upon him. 

When they entered the vestibule of the hotel together, and Kim- 
berley asked for and received his dispatch box, Windgall knew, 
without need of any faculty of clairvoyance, what its contents were. 
The manager led the way to the earl’s apartments and threw open 
the door of his sitting room. 

“ A glass of wine, Kimberley?” said his lordship. 


^‘ THE WAY OF THE WOKLD.’’ 


201 


“ Thank you,” responded Kimberley, somewhat faintly, “ 1 will 
take a glass of wine. ’ ’ 

“ You are not well?” cried his lordship, with solicitude, as Kim- 
berley laid both hands on the upper rail of a chair and leaned upon 
it heavily. 

“ 1 am tired,” said the little millionaire, wearily. “lam very 
tired.” 

Windgall placed a seat for him at the table and befell into it with 
an air of profound dejection and fatigue. The gray nobleman anx- 
iously regarding him, meanwhile, gave his orders to the manager, 
and w^hen they w^ere left alone seated himself at the opposite side of 
the table and talked disjointedly until a waiter appeared, nursing a 
bottle of Burgundy in a wicker cradle. Kimberley emptied his 
glass twic^ before he spoke, and then began. 

‘ ‘ I have something of the utmost importance to say to your lord- 
ship.” 

“Yes,” said Windgall, in a waiting tone. Kimberley drew the 
dispatch box toward him with both hands and slowly unlocked it. 
The earl’s heart began to beat again, so that his pulses made in his 
own ears much such a confused noise as a paddle wheel makes in 
water. Without the contents of that box his state was pitiful. 
With the contents of the box he was a free man. 

“ I gave these to your lordship,” said Kimberley, turning the case 
upside down and strewing the documents upon the table, “and 
begged you to accept them.” 

“ Your conduct has been marked throughout by a most perfect 
generosity,” replied Windgall. “1 was fully sensible of that fact 
when 1 returned the papers.” 

“ You sent them back,” said Kimberley with a remarkable stoni- 
ness of manner, “and told me that it was impossible for you to 
keep them.” 

He sat staring at the table with a something dogged and even 
sulky in his look, his lordship thought. Had he felt the return of 
the papers as an insult? 

“ I felt it so,” returned his lordship. “ Realize my position, Kim- 
berley. Let me beg of you — realize my position. How could I have 
retained them?” 

“And now,” said Kimberley, “they belong to me again, my 
lord?” 

“ Decidedly,” cried Windgall with an odd inward chill. “ That, 
I take it, is beyond dispute. ” He tried to say this laughingly, but the 
effort was not very successful. He looked at Kimberley, and was 
at once alarmed and puzzled by what he saw, 

“ If 1 say anything,” said Bolsover, more doggedly and sullenly 
than before, “ if 1 say anything to wound your lordship’s feelings I 
shall be very sorry.” 

“ I beg you,” said Windgall, “ to use the utmost freedom.” 

“ You didn’t understand my meaning, my lord,” Kimberley 
went on, “ when 1 first offered you these papers. Or, perhaps, you 
felt too proud to take them for nothing. Lady Ella was made the 
victim of your mistake, my lord. ” Windgall sat miserably silent. 
It was not pleasant to be taken thus to task by a man he had always 
hitherto felt it easy to despise. “ 1 don’t say anything about my- 


202 ^'THE WAY OF THE WOKLD/’ 

self,” pursued Kimberley, ‘‘because there is nothing I don’t de- 
serve for being such a fool. But we can never forgive ourselves, 
my lord, for our wickedness and cruelty.” 

“Really, my dear Kimberley,” cried Windgall, “you survey 
things throusrh a medium which distorts them strangely.” 

“Did you know, my lord,” said Kimberley, panting in his 
speech, and shifting the scattered papers with tremulous fingers, 
“ that Lady Ella — ? It’s like — like blasphemy!” he said des- 
perately, and for a little while he was silent. When he resumed his 
hands were trembling so that it discomposed the earl to look at 
them, and his face changed from white to scarlet and from scarlet 
to white with an alarming alternation. “ Did you know, my lord, 
that Lady Ella was in love?” 

“ No,” said his lordship, rising suddenly from the table and be- 
ginning to pace the room in great agitation. “1 will be perfectly 
plain and honest with you, Kimberley. Years ago — three or four 
years ago— I became aware of an attachment to my daughter on the 
part of an almost penniless youngster, and for her sake, knowing 
that nothing but misery could spring from a union between them, I 
saw the man and spoke to him. 1 represented things in their proper 
light to him. I saw his mother, a most estimable lady, whose 
means had long been unequal to the task her position imposed upon 
them. She, like myself — with those papers lying on the table be- 
tween us any affectation of reserve on my part would be as futile as 
it would surely be absurd — she, like myself knew the galling misery 
which is entailed on people in our station of life by insufficient 
means. She agreed with me. By her influence and mine the ac- 
quaintance between her younger son and my daughter was brought 
to a close. [1 had never any reason given me for believing that Lady 
Ella entertained one thought of regret for him. The young man, 
to my personal knowledge, is within a day or two of his departure 
for New Zealand, where, 1 am informed, on the most competent 
authority, he intends to settle permanently. You know now,” 
Windgall concluded, “ as much as 1 know myself.” 

“ 1 saw enough, ray lord,” said Kimberley, who, during the 
earl’s speech, had never lifted his eyes from the table, or ceased to 
toy nervously with the papers there, “ 1 saw enough to tell me that 
Lady Ella was unhappy. 1 was coming to tell you so, when 1 saw 
the parting between Lady Ella and her sweetheart. My lord,” cried 
the millionaire wildly, staring up at Windgall, and beating on the 
table with both hands with the gesture of one in extreme bodily 
pain, “ it broke my heart! it broke my heart!” 

He buried his face swiftly in his hands after this outbui’st, and 
sat in silence, quivering all over. The earl, with one hand resting 
on the back of a chair, looked strickenly across at him, 

“ Kimberley,” he said, scarce knowing what words he used, 
“ this is very hard to bear. It is bitter to me to have to think that 
my child deceived me.” 

“Deceived you?” cried Kimberley, looking wildly up again. 
“She broke her heart in quiet for your sake, my lord! Oh, my 
lord, my lord, you can’t let liim go awa}*^ after all she’s suffered.” 

My lord took to pacing the room again, and answered nothing. 
He began more and morelo understand Kimberley, and, for once in 


"‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 203 

the world, completer understanding widened and deepened esteem. He 
was angry, too, and humiliated, and was strongly inclined in his 
own heart to fight against his new opinion of Bolsover Kimberley. 

“ My lord,” said Kimberley, gathering up a double handful of the 
papers and stretching them toward him, “ you agreed to take these 
once for a wedding gift. ” Windgall looked back at him and paused 
in his disturbed walk about the chamber. “ Will you take ’em 
now? My lord, my lord, marry Lady Ella to the man she loves, and 
take these for a wedding gift.” 

“Kimberley,” said Windgall, stammering, “you are a noble 
hearted fellow.” 

“ My lord,” said Kimberley, “ I helped to torture her. I have a 
right to help to make her happy. Take them, my lord.” And he 
advanced with the papers in his hands. But Windgall’s self-pos- 
session wjis beaten down, and he was as wildly agitated as the mill- 
ionaire himself. He recoiled and waved his hands against the 
proffered gift. 

“ How can 1 take them?” he demanded. 

“If 5mu don’t,” said Kimberley, “I’ll use them. 1 will. I’ll 
put them every one in force to-morrow. Oh, no, my lord, 1 never 
meant to threaten you. Hasn’t there been trouble enough already? 
Take them, my lord, and make her happ}’-. Take them — do take 
them— as a wedding gift.” 

He thrust the papers into Windgall’s reluctant hands, and half of 
them fell about the floor. Both Kimberley and the earl stooping 
swiftly at the same instant to pick them up, their heads came into 
contact with ridiculous force, and they looked at each other more 
wildly than ever. Perhaps the physical shock did something toward 
sobering both of them. They picked up the scattered papers and 
Kimberley heaped them all in Windgall’s hands, and he, standing 
thus burdened, said, with more gravity and self-possession than he 
had until then been able to secure— 

“ This is a most noble and most generous proposal on your part, 
my dear Kimberley, but I really do not see my way clearly. Believe 
me,” continued the gray little nobleman, with a lip that quivered in 
spite of all the self-restraint he imposed upon himself, “ 1 value this 
magnificent offer to the full. 1 appreciate your self-sacrifice. 1 — 1 
do not think, Kimberley, that 1 have ever known so noble an act be- 
fore. It — it renews one’s faith in human nature.” 

He advanced to the table and laid the papers down. 

“ Let us talk soberly and quietly of this matter,” he said, again 
placing a chair for Kimberley, and drawing another near to it. 

“ I’m not quite well, my lord,” said Kimberley. The earl looked 
keenly at him, for there was something exceedingly strange in his 
voice, and he lurched a little as he laid both hands on the chair, 
which had been placed for him. “ 1 haven’t been well for two or 
three days,” he murmured vaguely, and Windgall, putting an arm 
through one of his, led him to an arm-chair with much concern. He 
sat there two or three minutes in silence, and then passing his hands 
across his forehead and his eyes, looked about him with the air of a 
man awaking from a drugged or drunken sleep. He saw Windgall, 
and then the untidy pile of papers on the table, and recalled his 
wandering wits. “ You won’t break Lady Ella’s heart, my lord,” 


204 ‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

lie said then. “ You’ll keep those things and let her marry the man 
she loves?” 

“ You are extremely unwell, Kimberley,” said his lordship; and, 
indeed, it was easy to see, that either from malady or fatigue, the 
poor little millionaire was quite broken for the time. 

“You’ll take them?” said Kimberley, feebly. 

“ Yes,” said his lordship, “ 1 will do my best. 1 will find out 
Clare to-morrow. God bless you, Kimberley. But you are ill— you 
are really very ill.” 

“ Tired,” answered Kimberley. 

“ Worse than tired, 1 am afraid,” said Windgall to himself, as he 
looked at his companion. 

“ If I die,” said Kimberley in a loud voice, which quavered sud- 
denly down into a murmur, “ everything is to go to Lady Ella, with 
my dearest love and worship.” 

The loud tones fell into such an indistinctness that Windgall made 
out nothing beyond the first three words. 

“ Great Heaven!” he said to himself, as he tugged at the bell-pull. 
“ The poor fellow is ill — seriously ill, 1 am afraid, already. Kim- 
berley ! The man doesn’t know me. ” A waiter entered the room in 
answer to the earl’s loud summons. “ Run for a doctor,” cried his 
lordship. “ This gentleman is unwell. Send up some one, mean- 
while, to assist him to a bedroom. Be as quick as you can.” 

The man hurried away, and having dispatched a messenger in 
search of a doctor, himself returned with a fellow-servant. 

“I’ve sent for a doctor, my lord,” said he. “ Can we do anything, 
my lord?” 

“Yes,” said his lordship, “you had better assist my friend into 
my room. It is near at hand, and there is a fire there already.” 

Kimberley suffered Himself to be taken by either arm and was 
half led, half carried, into the adjoining apartment, where Windgall, 
with his own hands, unfastened his coat, waistcoat, and shirt, whilst 
one of the waiters removed his boots. Kimberley, whose eyes were 
half closed and sleepy, as if with drink, made no movement of his 
own initiative, but submitted to everything that was done for him in 
apparent unconsciousness. 

A medical man was readily found, and he, being but young in his 
west-end practice, was not sorry to be summoned to attend upon a 
millionaire in the apartments of the Earl of Windgall. Before his 
arrival Kimberley was put to bed, and when the doctor entered the 
sitting-room Windgall was in the act of stowing away the legal doc- 
uments in the dispatch box. He suspended his task, and accom- 
panied the medico to Kimberley’s bedside. A great change had 
come over the little man already. His face was hot and flushed, his 
eyes had lost the sleepy and drunken look, shone unnaturally bright, 
and he was chattering to himself under his breath at a prodigious 
pace. The medico felt his pulse, laid a hand upon his forehead, 
and examined the pupils of his eyes. 

“ To my personal knowledge,” said his lordship in a whisper, “ he 
has been terribly agitated during the last two days. An hour ago he 
was talking seriously and sensibly, although in great agitation.” 

“ The fever,” said the doctor, “ has doubtless been incubating for 
days. A slight cold would serve as a physical basis for it. ” 


'^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 205 

“ Fever!” said the earl drawing back a little. “ Is it infectious?” 

“ It is as yet impossible, my lord,” returned the doctor, “ to pro- 
nounce decisively upon its nature. He should have a skilled nurse 
at once. There is a T^^urses’ Institution close at hand. Will you 
allow me to dispatch a note to the superintendent?” 

Windgall supplied him with writing materials, and he penned a 
brief note and a prescription. 

”1 will send these at once,” he said, ” and in two or three hours’ 
time 1 will call to see the nurse, and to observe the effect of the pre- 
scription. For the present, my lord, I have the honor to wish you a 
good-evening. ’ ’ 

Windgall, being left alone, finished the arrangement of the papers, 
locked them in the dispatch box, in the lock of which Kimberley 
bad left the key, and then walked on tiptoe into the bedroom. The 
millionaire was lying with his flushed face and bright eyes turned to 
the ceiling, and was still talking to himself at the same wild speed as 
before, but in tones so low that not a single intelligible word reached 
his lordship’s ears, until, on a sudden, he caught the phrase, “ If 1 
die.” 

“ What was that?” said Windgall. ” He said that when he began 
to break down so suddenly.” With half an inward shame he bent 
over the bed, and inclined his ear. Little by little he pieced the in- 
distinct mutterings together. Over and over again the phrases re- 
curred until he knew them all. 

“ Put that down. My dearest love and wmrship. It won’t matter 
when I’m dead. My dearest love and worship. Put that down. 
Everything to Lady Ella if 1 die. With dearest love and worship. 
Put it down. My dearest love and worship.” 

Windgall crept away again on tiptoe, and sat down in the sitting- 
room with many strangely-blended thoughts and feelings. Kimber- 
ley was mad enough now in all conscience. Had he been sane less 
than two hours ago when he had insisted upon my lord’s reaccept- 
ance of that terrible ninety thousand pounds? And could my lord 
keep the ninety thousand pounds so given? And was the promise to 
recall Clare binding in case Kimberley died? And if Kimberley died 
after recovering wits enough to make a wdll in Lady Ella's favor, 
would not that after all be the best course events could take? But 
the gray nobleman was not a monster, and these sordid thoughts 
were not natural to him. They felt to him like the promptings of 
some devil of unutterable meanness, who had control over his mental 
springs, and did what he would with them. He was feeling all the 
wdiile, too, how gentle and generous a nature Kimberley had re- 
vealed, how unselfish and how loyal in his love he was, and how 
profound and earnest his passions must have been. Well, there was 
no driving nature in these matters, but surely, in spite of his un- 
pretending exterior, the man had enough of goodness and nobility 
inside him to have justified a woman’s acceptance of him. And the 
million and a quarter might have gone for something, one would 
have thought. 

The arrival of a nurse, dispatched from the neighboring institution, 
dispersed these thoughts, and sent Windgall into new apartments 
which had already been prepared for him. He sat up until the doc- 


206 ‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

tor bad visited the patient a second time, and questioned him some-^ 
what eagerly. 

“ It can’t be usual,” he said, ” for a man to break down so sud- 
denly. A fever can’t commonly leap upon a man without warning 
in that way.” 

“The patient always has full warning,” replied the doctor, 
“ though it may often happen that he will not know what the warn- 
ing meant.” 

“ He seemed,” said Windgall, “ to break down in a minute.” Ho 
hardly liked to put the decisive question which was in his mind. ^ 

“You spoke, my lord,” said the doctor, “ of a great mental agita- 
tion. That would supply a stimulus, which would seem to retard, 
whilst it would actually hasten the progress of the disease. In such 
a case a man, as they sa}' in athletics, would run himself to a stand- 
still. 1 have known a man win a race and drop dead on the winning 
tape. He lived whilst he had to live.” 

“ M-m, ” said the earl thoughtfully. ‘ ‘ He carried his point before 
he broke down,” he said to himself. “ He must have been passion- 
ately set upon it. 1 understand,” he said aloud. “ You are accus- 
tomed to receive confidences in your profession.” The doctor 
bowed. “ There is some parallel to that in my friend’s case. A 
great mental strain — a greater strain than 1 could have conceived it 
to be — had been removed at the instant at which 1 noticed his first 
aberration.” 

Whilst they were talking thus, and all night long, Kimberley lay 
staring with bright unwinking eyes at the ceiling, muttering contin- 
ually: 

“ Everything to Lady Ella if 1 die. With dearest love and wor- 
ship. To Lady Ella. Everything. With dearest love and worship.” 


CHAPTER XXVlll. 

It was a rainy morning at the docks, and the decks of the steam- 
ship ‘ ‘ Patagonia’ ’ were wet and'dirty, and bestrewn with a wild variety 
of packages — great bales in canvas coverings, huge packing cases, 
the hundred component parts of machines of various make, each 
packed in straw— and a rabble of gentry in long shore costume made 
a hideous shindy, with shouting, pulling, and hauling, in the midst 
of which a person in blue pilot cloth and a gold-bound cap seemed 
to swear at large without creating any impression upon anybody. 
In the middle of the disorder stood Jack Clare, with the collar of a 
big ulster turned up over his ears, a cloth traveling cap pulled 
moodily over his eyes, and his hands in his coat pockets, watching 
the bestowal of his belongings in the hold. The gold-bound mate 
looked in his direction now and then, and invariably swore with 
add(d gusto afterward, for he regarded Jack’s presence there aa 
being in some sort an intrusion on his manor. 

For his part Jack thought nothing of the mate, and knew nothing 
of his ^evance. He came down here every day now, and watched 
the arrival of his agricultural properties, and of the corrugated zinc 
farmhouse and outhouses; and he pictured them, sorrowfully enough, 
as they would be, or might be, about the land he had never seen, and 
on which, as it seemed, he was to spend the rest of his lifetime. 


207 


^‘THE WAY OF THE WOULD.” 

The one thing that nerved the young fellow in these melancholy 
hours of preparation for a lifelong exile was the thought that he was 
going to he of use in the world, and though, in the abstract, this was 
no doubt a noble sentiment, it was but a poor plaster for a sore heart. 

“ I’ll go and do something,” he said to himself a thousand times. 

All the Clares sha’n’t be poverty-stricken to the end of time. 
Charley’ll get married, and have a lad or two most likely, and by 
their time there’ll be an estate in New Zealand worth more than the 
bare acres at home. ” 

But the prospect of benefiting these visionary possible youths helped 
him less than he expected. He who works for posterity cannot hope 
to receive his reward to-day. He longed savagely to be actually at 
work with his own head and hands, where he could tire himself into 
nightly sleep, and where the daily struggle with nature, as he figured 
her in those solitudes, would help him little by little to ignore the 
past. 

That ill-advised visit to Shouldershott had taught him one thing 
which he would have been less wretched not to have known, for he 
had learned there, beyond his power to doubt, that Ella loved him, 
and that she, like himself, was condemned to a lonely and loveless 
life. If in his thoughts about Windgall he was hard and bitter and 
despiteful, it is not, perhaps, greatly to be wondered at, or very 
strongly to be condemned. In the creed of young men who are in 
love, love has a natural right to override everj thing, and even the 
economies and cares which age suggests look mean to the eyes of a 
lover. In a case like Jack Clare’s nothing more could be asked than 
that he should consume his own smoke. This he did, with more 
than average assiduity, and apart from those who knew the case, no- 
body fancied the young fellow to be lovelorn, though he was quite 
taciturn and gloomy enough at this time, and ferociously radical in 
his opinions. In his own heart he cursed, like the hero of Locksley 
Hall, the gold that gilded the straightened forehead of the fool, and, 
of course, the fool was Bolsover Kimberley. 

“ In a month,” 

So poor Jack would quote to himself at times. 

“ In a month 

They wedded her to eighty thousand pounds, 

To lands in Kent, and messuages in York, 

To slight Sir Robert, with his watery smile 
And educated whisker.” 

He would rail inwardly at Kimberley for not being even the “ slight 
Sir Robert,” and denied that most arrant and contemptible of snobs 
the poor merit even of the educated whisker. 

It is not likely that there is any young man in the world who 
would not have thought it cruel to separate so true a pair of lovers, 
and to force the lady into a loveless marriage with a man so certain 
to be repugnant to her. But Clare was in love, and to him this 
match looked hideous and shameful. The thought of it corroded 
his soul, and he brooded over it with an indignation so passionate 
and bitter that he felt at times as if he carried an actual fire within 
him. It is a hard thing to learn such hatred and disdain, and the 
careful elders who instruct the young in this wise may have more 


208 


‘'THE WAY OF THE WOKLD.” 

upon their heads than they know of. To turn generous young 
blood to gall, and the kindly instincts of a young heart to cynicism, 
is not a little matter, or one to be lightly thought of. Some of the 
lightest social advantages may be too dearly purchased at such a 
price. 

Somehow the rain and hubbub and discomfort on the “ Patagb- 
nia’s ” deck seemed to suit his mood, and he would not have abated 
any of these small miseries if he had had the power. 

“Patagonia,” cried a voice from the quay, and Jack, looking 
round with listless eyes, saw a smart-looking messenger with his 
hand at his mouth to direct the lengthened “ ahoy ” with which he 
followed the vessel’s name. 

“ Here,” shouted the sullen mate, with a gratuitous execration. 
“ What are you bawling there for?” 

“ Honorable Captain Clare aboard?” shouted the messenger. 

The mate pointed out the Honorable Captain Clare with a sort of 
bearish politeness extorted by the title, and made up for this con- 
cession by swearing with unusual fluency at a lighterman, who, be- 
ing indepenaent of the mate’s good will, swore back again. Whilst 
the wordy torrents met and raged together the messenger came aboard 
and tendered to Clare a letter. He saw with amazement that it bore 
the Windgall crest, and that it was directed in Windgall’s hand and 
marked ‘ ‘ immediate. ’ ’ 

“ It was sent to the hotel, sir,” said the messenger, touching his 
hat, “ and the manager ordered me to take a cab and come on with 
it at once.” 

“ H’m,” said Jack, and turning his back to the wind and rain 
opened the envelope and read — 

“ My dear Clare, — After the circumstances attendant upon our 
late meeting you will probably be surprised by the receipt of this 
letter. 1 have, however, to tell you (and I may as well do it with- 
out circumlocution or delay) that circumstances have occurred which 
enable me to withdraw the opposition I have hitherto been com- 
pelled to offer to your union with my daughter. 1 shall be pleased 
to see you here at your earliest convenience. 

“ Yours very truly, 

“ Windgall.” 

This epistle was undoubtedly a somewhat odd one, though perhaps 
his lordship could not have done better if he had taken a twelve- 
month to think about it. It had been written, and looked as if it 
had been written at great haste, and the letters stretched and sprawled 
over three sides of the sheet of note paper. As Jack read it he un- 
derstood it well enough, and yet he could scarcely believe that he 
understood it at all. He read it two or three times over, and felt 
stunned, as if he had been smartly rapped on the head with a mallet. 

“ I’m not mad,” he said to himself. “ I’m not dreaming. ‘Cir- 
cumstances have occurred which enable me to withdraw the oppo- 
sition 1 have hitherto been compelled to offer to your union with my 
daughter. ’ Plain black and white. ‘ I shall be pleased to see you 
here at your earliest convenience.’ ” 

He hardly dared to believe this astounding intelligence. That the 


209 


^‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

skies should have fallen would have been noihing by comparison 
with it. He read the letter anew, and his heart began to beat thick 
with an actual fear, the delusion looked so real. When the impos- 
sible happens the man to whom it occurs is apt to feel a little stag- 
gered by it to begin with. 

“ Get me a cab,” he said in a quiet and unmoved voice to the mes- 
senger, who touched his cap anew and followed him on shore. “ I’ll 
see this through,” murmured Jack to himself. “ If I am mad I am 
mad. Perhaps I am dead and things are righting themselves in a 
second world. I don’t remember dying, though.” He felt a strange 
wild tendency to laugh, and when he came to the cab by which the 
messenger had arrived he could not speak for nearly half-a-minute, 
but stood with bent head as if sunk deep in thought, controlling 
himself the while. 

“ Where to, sir?” asked the cabman at last. 

Clare opened the letter and re-read the name of the hotel at which 
Windgall was staying. It cost him a great effort to pronounce it, 
but he looked no more than dreamy and pre-occupied. Neither 
cabman nor messenger noted anything as he entered the vehicle and 
was driven away, but as the first numbed feeling induced by this 
amazing shock began to disappear his pulses rioted in his heart and 
head, and he shot such wild conjectures here and there as to the 
causes which could have induced this change in Windgall’s mind 
that he almost resigned himself to the conclusion that his mind had 
fallen into chaos. For had not Windgall hated him this three years 
past? And was not Ella bound to that dreadful little millionaire? 
And was her father the man to relent at any sorrow of hers? Was 
he not steeped to the heart in sordid thoughts, and by nature incapa- 
ble of a generous impulse? Was not, in brief, the whole incredible 
incident the obvious growth of a mind diseased, and could a man 
with a scrap of sanity left in him yield it credence for a single mo- 
ment? 

” I must believe it,” said the disturbed youngster ,iiloud. “I’ll 
believe it till I find it’s false.” 

He sat with his thoughts in a whirl, and by the time at which the 
cab drew up before the hotel he was as pale as death. It cost him a 
prodigious efl:ort to ask for Windgall in a way which should not re- 
veal the agitation he suffered, and he felt his hands tremble so much 
when he essayed to unbutton his overcoat to seek his cardcase that 
he abandoned that enteiprise, and, making shift to say, “ Tell his 
lordship that Captain Clare is here,” awaited Windgall’s answer in 
a sort of desperation. Out of this grew a sudden coolness and self- 
possession, which lasted until the servant returned. 

“ This way, sir.” Jack’s heart began to beat again, and he could 
scarce see the way along the broad and well-lit corridor. “This 
way, sir, ’ ’ said the servant a second time, and threw open a door. 
The young man entered almost blindly, and heard the earl’s voice 
with an odd tremor in it. 

“ Good morning, Clare, Good morning. Wild weather, but not 
unseasonable for the time of year. ” His lordship was shaking Jack 
by the hand. ^ 

“ I received your note,” said the younger man, who saw his lord- 


210' ‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

ship's gray features as if through a silvery fog, “ and I came here at 
once." 

So 1 see," said the earl. “Be seated." The servant had 
closed the door, and his retreating footsteps sounded clearly. Jack 
obeyed his lordship’s injunction, and the silvery fog began to clear 
away. “ I have no doubt," said his lordship, approaching the center 
table, and beginning to push about the trifles which lay upon it, “I 
have no doubt that you were surprised by the receipt of my note?" 

“ I was surprised, my lord, certainly," said Jack, not as yet know- 
ing well what to say, or what to think. 

“ You rnust allow me to go back a little while," his lordship said 
nervously, “ When I requested you, nearly three years ago, to allow 
your intimate and friendly visits at the Castle to cease for a time, I 
spoke in my daughter’s interest and your own. You naturally 
thought my conduct a little brutal and self-interested. Young men 
think such thin^ of their elders. We see things from different 
standpoints, and in thirty years from now you will be readier to take 
my side than 1 can expect you to be at present." 

He paused, as if expecting a reply, probably a negative, but Jack 
merely nodded to him to continue. He did not see the sign, for he 
was still nervously pushing about the trifles on the table, but he 
went on again. 

“ 1 will not even say that if — in the existing circumstances— I had 
known at the time that my daughter’s affections were engaged in 
your behalf— I will not say thRt even then I should have been dis- 
posed to encourage your suit. Young people form attachments, and 
set their hearts upon unions ’’ — he floundered somewhat awkwardly 
— “ attachments which are unfortunate, and unions which are im- 
possible. And even if I had known that Ella’s wishes were as deep- 
ly concerned as your own I am not sure that 1 could have con- 
sented. 1 am almost sure that I should still have felt it my duty to 
persuade her to a wiser view." 

Still Jack made no response, and after another nervous pause the 
earl continued. 

“In spite of what 1 have said already, Clare, 1 shall ask you to 
believe that 1 love my daughter. If I had been a wealthy man — if 
1 had been anything but a very poor man — you would have been 
welcome to continue your addresses. If j'ou had been wealthy, or 
if I had been wealthy, (it would have made no difference to me 
from which side the money came), 1 would have given my consent 
to the proposals you made to me. But I have suffered from poverty 
all my life, and 1 know its bitternesses, its humiliations. You may 
accept it as a proof of the feeling with which I regard you that I 
tell you these things. They are not easy things to speak of." 

‘ ‘ I am obliged to your lordship for the confidence you are pleased 
to place in me," said Jack, opening his lips for the second time since 
his entrance to the room. 

“But," said his lordship, looking up and looking down again, 
“ you naturally ask to what does all this lead? Well, I am going to 
be perfectly frank and candid with you. 1 did not know, and 1 had 
no reason given me to suspect, that Ella was suffering from any 
sentimental distresses on account of the decision at which 1 had felt 
myself compelled to arrive. Even if 1 had known that she had taken 


211 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

my decision to heart 1 am not sure, as 1 have said already, that I 
should have been the more disposed to yield. But I should have 
stood firm, not because I am a heartless father, or insensible to my 
child’s welfare, but because 1 have learned some little wisdom in a 
harder school than she or you have known.” 

“ Your letter tells me,” Jack began, when the earl paused, “ that 
circumstances have occurred — ” 

” 1 will not tell you what those circumstances are precisely,” said 
"Windgall. ” I do not know if I have a right to tell you. Some 
day 1 may be able to lay them all before you, but at present they 
involve a secret which 1 have no right to reveal. It must be enough 
that they have occurred. I have learned that my daughter’s hap- 
piness, if not actually bound up with your own, is likely to be 
affected — I do not find it easy to talk of these things, Clare.” 

” Have I your permission, my lord,” said Jack, standing up sud- 
denly, “ to renew my addresses to Lady Ella?” 

” That is really the question,” said his lordship, advancing with 
his right hand outstretched. ” You have my full permission, and 1 
wish you and her long life and happiness with all my heart.” 

Jack grasped the extended hand m so unconventional a manner 
that his lordship’s fingers felt as if glued together for a full minute 
after their release. 

” Thank you,” he said, with a little catch in his voice, ” Thank 
you, my lord. Can 1 see Ella? Is she in town?” His heart felt 
almost drowned in this tide of joy, which poured so suddenly on 
the desert of his griefs. “ I am afraid 1 have thought hard thoughts 
about you, sir,” he stammered. ” 1 beg your pardon for them.” 

” Ella,” said Windgall, rubbing his hands together in a fashion 
which looked cordial, but was only intended to restore the circula- 
tion to his stiffened fingers, ‘‘Ella is at Gallowbay. 1 have wired to 
her this morning, asking her to join me here. If you care to dine 
with us this evening — ?” 

‘‘ Thank you,” cried Jack once more. ” My lord,” he hurried on 
humbly, ” I don’t know how to thank you. 1 don’t know how to 
ask your pardon for all the mistaken thoughts 1 have had about 
you.^’ 

” Tut, tut,” said my lord, with a transient shamefacedness, “ 1 
acted for the best.” 

He was mightily relieved up to now to find that Jack asked no 
questions about Kimberley; but he was still nervous lest the topic 
should be broached. The lover had thought of Kimberley also; but, 
even now, he could hardly bear to couple his name in the same mental 
breath with Ella’s, and it was enough for the present to know that, 
however it had come about, that shameful match was broken off, and 
Ella released from the prospect of that awful life-long slavery. 

‘‘And now,” said Windgall, with some little awkwardness still 
remaining, “ may I ask you to leave me to some business of ex- 
treme importance, which lam afraid,” looking at his watch, “ lean 
really delay no longer.” He gave his prospective son-in-law his 
hand. ‘‘Be as fervent as you like,” he was enforced to say on 
withdrawing it, ‘‘ but you are a little stronger than you know, 1 
fancy. Don’t forget this evening. Half-past seven. And now, 
good-by.” 


212 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


if 

Jack blushed and stammered like a schoolboy, and escaped he 
scarce knew how. His forgotten cabman hailed him as he came 
upon the pavement, and he leaped into the vehicle and commanded 
the driver to drive to his hotel, where he locked himself in his own 
room and paced up and down elated. He stretched out his arms as 
if Ella could fly to them. 

“ No more grief, dear; no more pain. My dear, my dear.” 

By and by he grew a little calmer, and sat down with that contra- 
band portrait he had kept so long, and gazed at it with tear-dimmed 
eyes until he was fain to fall upon his knees, remembering the things 
his mother had taught him, and thank God for Ella’s rescue and 
the new happiness of his own lot. But this is scarcely within the 
story-teller’s province, to my mind. 

” My dear Ella,” said his lordship, in answer to her troubled in- 
quiry at Euston, where he met her, ” there was no cause for any 
alarm in my dispatch. Altogether, 1 jhave reason to believe that 
you will find the circumstances in which 1 have summoned you to 
town very agreeable and satisfactor 3 ^ Tollgett and Priscille will 
see to your baggage. Alice is already in the carriage. When we 
reach the hotel 1 shall want to speak to you. 1 have altogether very 
happy news.” He was excited, and Ella could scarcely help think- 
ing that his news was less happy than he proclaimed it to be. 
“ Especially happy news for you, my dear,” he half-whispered, as 
he led her to the carriage. 

She did not quite know what news could be especially happy for 
her to hear. She had resigned herself to hear no news of her own 
affairs which could seem happ 3 % and she did not greatly trouble 
herself to understand the meaning of her father’s words. But when 
tliey had reached the hotel he contrived that he and Ella should be 
alone for a while, and he stooped and kissed her as she sat before 
the fire with folded hands. 

“ My dear,” he said, in a voice which betrayed some agitation, 
“ you must look your best this evening. 1 havq invited Captain 
Clare to dinner. ” 

He had scarcely spoken when he blamed himself for this precipi- 
tation, though even then, he scarcely saw how he could have soft- 
ened the intelligence he had to offer. He could not understand that 
it was the complete uncertainty of its meaning rather than the 
simple intelligence itself which so agitated his daughter. Her 
cheeks became deadly pale, and for a moment he thought she was 
» about to swoon, but she controlled herself with a great effort and 
sat silent and trembling. 

” You will be pleased to see him, dear?” he asked, when he saw 
the color stealing back to her cheek. At ^this query she blushed 
divinely, but she smiled also, and he stooped again to kiss her on 
the forehead. There was a strong feeling of compunction and pity 
in his heart as he did so, for he thought how long for his own selfish 
reasons he had made this best of daughters unhappy, and with how 
profound a sense of duty she had obeyed him. For he knew, now, 
something of the sense of heartbreak she had suffered, and though 
he had never been the man to feel that kind of grief acutely, or to 
sympathize with it keenly, he was not cruel or hard-hearted, and he 


^^THE WAY OF THE AVOKLD.’’ 213 

loved her after all. “1 saw him this morning,” Windgall con- 
tinned, “ and I told him formally that so far as 1 was concerned 1 
withdrew all opposition to his suit. 1 have been mistaken, all along, 
my dear,” he went on, with a huskiness in his voice and a moisture 
in his eyes. ” 1 never meant to be cruel to you.” 

No, no,” she answered, rising and hiding her blushing face be- 
side his. ” I am sure of that. ” 

He put his right arm about her waist, and she set an arm aroimd 
his neck, and in that way they walked up and down the room to- 
gether for a little while, as Windgall spoke. 

‘ ' There is a thing 1 have not yet been able to tell Captain Clare. 
No, don’t be alarmed, Ella. There is nothing more to come be- 
tween you. But there is a thing 1 have not been able to tell him, 
and I must ask you not to tell him either, though I have not only a 
right to let you know it, but feel it a sort of duty. You remember 
the documents poor Kimberley so nobly offered me? We mistook 
him. I mistook him. The noblest and the most generous heart — ” 
He paused a little in his speech and in his walk, but resumed both 
together. “ When he discovered how distasteful he was to you, and 
became quite certain in his own mind that you could not possibly be 
happ}’’ with him, he came to tell me so, as you know already. 
Then, as you know already, I sent the papers back to him. He had 
proposed to make a wedding bonfire of them, and of course I could 
not keep them after what had happened. He followed me here to 
London, and brought the papers with him. He absolutely refused 
to accept them, and 1 as absolutely refused to retain them. ’ ’ 

Once before in this history Lord Windgall made a statement of 
this kind, a statement not purely veracious. In that instance, as in 
this, he was unconscious of deception, and he really tl^ught that he 
had made his refusal absolute. 

“ He told me,” his lordship continued, ” that he had been an in- 
voluntary witness of your parting with Captain Clare.” At this 
Ella started and blushed, and half withdrew her arm. Even when 
she had restored it her father noticed a difference in her gait, a some- 
thing which spoke of wounded reserve and of indignation. ” He 
was at that moment on his way to see me, aud to tell me the conclu- 
sion at which he had arrived. He told me this, and when 1 gave 
the papers back to him he threatened me. It was the most mag- 
nanimous threat I ever heard, my dear. He told me that if I would 
not give my consent to your marriage with Captain Clare, he would 
put every one of the documents in force next day. But he cried out 
a moment later that he had never meant to threaten me, and im- 
plored me to take them as a wedding-gift, and remove the barrier 
which stood between you and the man of your choice. And so, my 
dear,” he continued hurriedly, ” 1 had no choice but to yield, and— 
and the papers were destroyed, were burned.” 

” Papa,” she said gravely, and even sorrowfully, “how could 
you take them?” 

“ 1 felt that,” cried Windgall, eagerly. “ But 1 could not refuse 
them. He would take no nay. He insisted. A man who won’t 
take money from another can’t be forced into taking it.” 

After that, seeing into what an easily escapable pitfall he had 
fallen, he was dumb for a minute. 


214 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 




“That was awkwardly expressed, of course,” he began again,, 
with an uneasy laugh. “ He had the power ♦o refuse, and I had not. 
My dear, we have all been mistaken in the man. He has the noblest, 
the most generous, the tenderest, the most chivalrous heart.” The 
withered nobleman was honestly moved as he spoke these words. 
“ There is one thing 1 must tell you, dear, though it may dash your 
joy a little. You ought to know it, for it can’t all be merry-making 
here at this time, with no memory of the man who gave us the right 
to be happy. You may not think much of poor Kimberley’s heart, 
my dear, but it was all yours. He lies here now, in this same hotel, 
ill of brain fever, and in great danger, as the doctors fear. And he 
has never spoken a word since he lost consciousness that did not 
relate to yoa. ‘ If 1 die,’ he says continually, poor fellow, ‘ If 1 die, 
everything is to go to Lady Ella, with dearest love and worship.’ 
That is all the poor stricken creature thinks about.” An actual tear 
trickled down the gray face and dropped on Ella’s hand, for his 
lordship was a good deal moved by his own eloquence by this time. 
“ He says that always without ceasing, and he says nothing else. I 
pray God with all my heart, that he may live for many a year, and 
be as happy as he deserves to be.” 

This stoiy touched the girl profoundly. These things are hard to 
find, but, perhaps, now tliat she knew all the devotion of the heart 
she has despised, if there had been no such man as Jack Clare in the 
world, she might have resigned herself to marry even the poor little 
Bolsover Kimberley. She was free of him now, and free to pity 
him. If Kimberley could ever have known of the tears she shed 
over this pathetic story, and the thoughts she thought of him, he 
would have been more than consoled, a proud and happy man for 
ever. ^ 

What are externals after all, when heart really comes within reach 
of heart? What did it matter to have been a lawyer’s clerk, and to 
have been cursed with an exterior of foolish weakness, and to have 
been ill bred and full of gaucheries, when, after all, this patrician 
lady whom he loved so tenderly, could shed tears of pity for him, and 
could come near to loving him, if even for a moment only? 

But it is rare to meet with one’s deserts in this world, and Kim- 
berley never linew of these things. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

If Ella had a tear or two to bestow on Kimberley’s sorrows, it 
was still natural that she should remember her own good fortune, 
and the happiness which lay before her and her lover. There really 
are people in the world, however much the pessimist may be dis- 
pose to disbelieve it, whose only road to happiness lies through the 
happiness of others, and Ella thought a great deal more of seeing her 
lover happy than of her own content. The sweet a^d only half- 
conscious egotism which assured her that it was in her power to 
make him happy furnished her with a rich rew’ard for all the sor- 
rows of the past. The thought never once crossed her mind, “ now, 
am I going to be happy?” but that other thought, infinitely more 
delightful, “now, will Jack be happy?” made very music in her 


WAY OF THE WOBLD/’ 215 

heart. It is not unreasonable, surely, that at times events should be 
so ordered, that this sort of unselfish and generous nature should be 
happier than any selfish nature has the power to be. 

So if over poor Kimberley some natural tears she shed, she dried 
them soon, and when Alice saw hei a half hour later, she was 
amazed at her radiant and tender looks. It must needs be sorrow- 
ful that so good a creature as the little Bolsover had after all prove<l 
to be should suffer as he suffered, but it must needs be a glad thing 
that her hero and man of men was saved from- loneless exile, and 
that after all the rainy days he had known the sun was at last to 
shine upon him. Perhaps in the course of this history it has never 
been made quite clear that Jack was much of a hero, but it might 
go hard with Lady Ella’s suitor if it were imperatively demanded 
that he should be in all respects worthj'^ of her. Goodness is not the 
sole prerogative of womeii. There are men who share their virtues, 
and there are certain manly virtues which few women own, but they 
are better than we are, and there are few amongst us who are really 
worthy of a good woman’s love. A good woman is beyond rubies. 

Think of her life — how pure and blameless! Set your own beside 
it, and you can scarce do less than feel a twinge of shame. It is a 
thousand to one that you show like a raven on a snow bank. In 
that tender domestic purity we have all seen and known there is 
something almost terrible, and the angel of the flaming sword might 
well seem to stand between us and it, warning us back from a tres- 
pass on that paradise of goodness. 

But Ella was at least provided with a husband, chaste, honor- 
able, and manly, and in this imperfect world perhaps even the best 
sort of women could scarcely ask for more. Jack, awaiting the 
happy moment when he should rejoin her, could as yet hardly find 
it in his heart to credit his own good fortune, and certainly never 
presumed for a moment to think himself worthy of it. But the 
whole thing at present was a , wonder and a miracle. The cruelest 
of conceivable fates had changed, without a moment’s warning, into 
the happiest. That wicked ogre of an earl had suddenly become a 
good father, with his daughter’s welfare the one thing nearest to his 
heart, and the Kimberley goblin had somehow vanished into the 
outer darkness, had made himself air, like the foul figures in Macbeth, 

Jack was attired cap-a-pie a good three hours before the time ap- 
pointed, and paced the room like a prisoner awaiting the moment of 
release. Half an hour before he dare presume to start, he dispatched 
a waiter for a cab, and he looked at his watch a thousand times at a 
moderate computation. Before this, the weather had cleared pretty 
much as his own prospects had done, and the gaslit streets lay under 
a clear sky, with rosy clouds of sunset in it; London smoke made 
glorious beyond human imagination. As he drove to Windgall’s 
hotel the young man surveyed the passengers on either side of the 
road and blessed them unaware. 

When he arrived at the hotel and was ushered into Windgall’s 
sitting-room, he found himself alone for a moment. A clear fire 
was burning on the hearth, and one shaded lamp shed a soft and 
rosy twilight upon the half-darkness of the chamber. The.curtains 
were close drawn, and to his fancy there was something home-like 
In the chamber. His heart was beating high with a flattered sense 


216 


^*THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


jj 

of expectancy when the door opened and Ella entered alone. She 
advanced with a hand frankly stretched toward him, and he took it 
in both his own, and bent over it as if he were a pilgrim at a shrine, 
and kissed it reverently. Then still holding it in both his own he 
drew her gently to the hearth-rug where the softened light of the 
lamp, and the glow of the fire met together, and could fall upon her 
face. A woman is never so beautiful as in the eyes of her lover, 
and lovely as she was his love spiritualized her beauty. She seemed 
scarcely mortal to him, and he looked at her with such a reverence 
and tender awe as one might feel in the presence of an angel. But 
she was all woman, too, and as he looked the hand he held was 
drawn closer and closer, and the lovely face came nearer and nearer, 
until at last his lips touched hers, and he set both arms around 
her and drew her to his heart. There was no need of question or 
reply just then, for they each knew the other’s heart already. 

Ella disengaged herself from his embrace, but he took her by 
both unresisting hands and held her, looking into her eyes, until 
brave as they were they drooped before him in a pleased confusion, 
and then he found audacity enough to take her to his arms again. 

It was full a minute before either of them spoke, and then said 
Jack, looking down into her eyes, 

“ Are you happy, dear?” 

“ And you?” she answered with delightful ndi'cete, ” are you 
happy, too?” 

” Happy?” cried Jack with a sort of scorn of the word, and he 
must needs kiss her once more, as if kissing were ihe only possible 
channel of communication. “ I can’t believe that 1 am here,” he 
said, when she had again escaped from him. 1 feel as if it were all 
a dream. I am afraid of awaking.” She shook her head with a shy 
and radiant smile. ” How did it all come about, dear?” he asked 
her. “ How was the miracle accomplished? I was eating my heart 
this morning, and it was as bitter as gall. And only half a dozen 
hours later 1 find myself in heaven. Who has done it all?” 

“ You must ask papa,” said Ella. 

“ He found out that you cared for me?” said Jack, ‘‘ that you — 
loved me? You do care for me, a little? It isn’t mere mad vanity 
and insolence in me to think so? 1 don’t think it is vanity or inso- 
lence, my darling. I never felt so humble. 1 never felt so un- 
worthy.” 

She was once more a purely angelic presence to him, and he abased 
himself in spirit before her. He knelt to her and kissed both her 
hands. 

” And yet you do care for me a little?” he asked her with return- 
ing courage. 

“Yes,” she answered, with a low ripple of happy laughter in her 
voice. “A little.” 

His lordship of Windgall, who had ihe good taste to be attacked 
with a rather severe fit of coughing at the moment at which he opened 
the door, appeared at this juncture, and Jack scrambled somewhat 
hastily and guiltily to his feet, and there seemed to both these 
young people a something sly and underhanded in the attempt to 
hide altogether the character of the interview which had taken place 
between them, and so when my lord entered, he found them still 


"'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 217 

stanaing in spite of the signal he had given, hand in hand before the 
fireplace. If there had been light enough for him to observe by he 
would have seen that both of them were blushing in a way which in 
one case was singularly becoming, and in the'other rather sheepish. 
For it has been ordained by Nature that under this sort of conditions, 
the maid shall look more than mortal, sweet and charming, and the 
man a trifle ridiculous. 

“ This is Captain Clare, papa,” said Lady Ella, and Captain Clare, 
relinquishing her hands, proffered his own right hand to Wiudgall. 

“Nothing will afford me greater pleasure than to shake hands 
with Captain Clare,” said his lordship laughing. “ But, Clare, as 
you are strong be merciful.” 

Jack blushed and laughed in answer, but shook hands in a manly 
and straightforward way, and Wiudgall returned ihe pressure with 
seeming cordiality. Perhaps it was not in human nature to be actu- 
ally cordial all at once with a man who robbed him of so excellent a 
son-in-law as Kimberley would have been, but the earl made at least 
a creditable struggle. Firet impressions are sometimes difficult to 
overcome, but his lordship had thoroughly vanquished his first beliefs 
in Kimberley, and was, after the ordinary manner of human nature, 
much more disposed to value him now that he had lost him than he 
had ever been before. This natural tendency was strengthened by 
the fact that he had only really begun to value that despised pro- 
spective son-in-law of his wlien the little man had come to deal the 
death blow to his own dearest hopes. But Windgall saw now clearly 
enough what he had lost, and to do him no more than justice his 
regret for the millionaire’s money was no stronger than his sense of 
the millionaire’s more personal possessions. 

He had been trying hard all the afternoon to persuade himself 
that things had happened for tbe best, and even in the unhappiest 
light his moods could throw upon the history of his daughter’s love 
affairs, they still looked almost sufficiently prosperous. He himself 
stood clear of debt, and he would settle a couple of thousand a year 
upon Ella, and still be more than two thousand five hundred pounds 
a year richer than he had ever been in his life before. He knew the 
amount of Clare’s recent windfall, and supposed the young gentle- 
man’s private income to amount to something like fifteen hundred 
pounds. Now, even with the addition he proposed to make to it from 
his own poor resources, the income of Ella’s future husband looked 
very poor indeed beside Kimberley’s annual fifty or sixty thousand 
pounds, but his lordship bethought him— being anxious now to make 
the best of everything — that he had always voted straight with his 
party, and had been not altogether useless in other ways to his polit- 
ical chieftains, that having no sons of his own, he had never had 
occasion to ask a favor in his life, and with the influence on which 
he could fairly count, in combination with Captain Clare’s brother. 
Lord Montacute, the young gentleman might be hoisted into some 
place of emolument and honor, which would make him not so poor 
a match for Ella after all. Caplain Clare had certainly been guilty 
of a public indiscretion at the last Gallowbay election, and had de- 
serted the traditional politics of his family, but he was young, and 
that false step might easily be condoned if he would consent in his 
future doings to be guided by the voice of experience and reason. 


218 


'"THE WAY OF THE WORLD.'’ 

And perhaps it had been no more than natural my lord allowed, in 
his new found anxiety, to think the best of Jack Clare, that the 
young man should have been stung by the pangs of despised love, 
into the expression of those ill-considered Radical opinions. To my 
lord’s natural way of thinking, a Radical was a disinterested person 
who wanted something which was out of reach, and now that 
Jack had what he wanted, it was easy to suppose that he would re- 
turn to the faith of his fathers. 

None of these considerations presented themselves to the lover’s 
mind as he sat in heavenly blessedness at the same table with Ella. 
He ate but little, being content to feed his eyes and heart, but what 
he ate was like manna to him, a food sublimated and refined. Ella 
and Alice, Windgall and Clare, made a very quiet party, and Jack’s 
replies to his host’s observations were sometimes altogether out of 
joint. Windgall had more to say than anybody else at table, but 
even he was often a little silent and self-absorbed in spite of himself, 
and Alice, as it turned out afterward, was observing her sister and 
the visitor, and forming opinions of her own. 

For when the two sisters were alone together after dinner, the 
sagacious young observer stole to her sister’s side, and without ap- 
parent provocation kissed her. Young ladies do not usually blush 
beneath a salute of this sort from sisterly lips, and yet Ella’s clear 
cheek took a rare tint of carmine. 

“ 1 always thought,” said Alice, ” that there was somebody else, 
and 1 always thought it was — ” 

At this point Ella kissed her back again, and the confidence was 
either lost, or held to be unnecessary. 

Meanwhile, in the dining-room my lord and his guest were en- 
gaged in serious talk. Windgall lit a cigar, but Jack, ordinarily an 
egregious smoker, for some reason of his own declined tobacco. It 
is undeniable that Jobacco smoke clings to the mustache, and the 
young man was not as yet, perhaps, altogether certain of Lady 
Ella’s approval of the odor. 

“ Clare,” said my lord, “ 1 want to have a serious talk with you.” 
Jack nodded gravely, ana drew his chair a little nearer to the table, 
“lam not able to give my daughter a great portion, and you are 
not a wealthy man. It is best to be candid in these matters, and I 
am sure I can speak to you quite openly.” 

“ Assuredly,” said the lover. 

“1 don’t know as yet,” resumed Windgall, “what provision I 
shall be able to make for her, but in any case, it will not be large,” 

“ It is a question, my lord,” cried Jack, “ that has never entered 
my thoughts.” 

“ Let it enter now,” said Windgall, in an almost sportive manner. 
“ As a matter of fact — and matters of fact deserve to be looked at, 
even when one is going to be married— this is a dreadfully improvi- 
dent marriage on both sides, and if you young people had properly 
understood your own interests, you would each have fallen in love 
with somebody who had a little money.” He spoke quite laugh- 
ingly, but Jack w^as so persuaded that he believed lie was speaking 
the truth, that he could secure no smiling answer for him, but toyed 
seriously with a pair of nut-crackers and attempted no reply. “ Of 
course,” pursued his lordship, “ that is a very heathen sentiment. 


219 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

and is not at all likely to recommend itself to you. But still the 
fact remains that in a worldly sense both Ella and yourself might 
have chosen more wisely. We elderly people, you know, Clare, get 
into a way of thinking that in right of our experience we ought to 
be allowed to have things our own way, but you impetuous young- 
sters beat us, and we have to accept defeat with the best grace we 
can command. You must allow experience to have a word, 
however. Let us make the best of things. And to begin with, let 
me ask you what is your financial position?” 

” My income,” Jack answered, ” is a trifle, a mere trifle, over fif- 
teen hundred a year.” 

“Well,” said my lord, “ you know what that is to a man in our 
position. It means poverty — actual poverty — poverty bhter and 
galling. I can give Ella enough to double that sum — perhaps even 
a little more, but it still means poverty.” 

‘‘You are very generous, my lord,” said the lover. ‘* But fifteen 
hundred a year does not necessarily mean poverty.” 

” No!” said his lordship, lifting his gray eyebrows with a smile 
half pitying and half satirical. ‘‘ It will pay rent and taxes if you 
choose to house yourself moderately. You are not so simple as to 
suppose that you can resign everything to which your position en- 
titles you. No, no. With three thousand a year you will still be 
poor, but you will not want to be idle and unoccupied, and 1 sup- 
pose you have ambitions, as most young men of parts have. 1 had 
ambitions myself once on a time, but I did what you are doing, 
Clare, 1 made an improvident marriage, a love match, and they 
dropped away from me. I was blessed with the best of wives, and 
I never regretted my marriage except for my children’s sake. But 
poverty is a dreadful clog, a dreadful clog. It drags the life out of 
everything.” 

‘‘ 1 am not afraid of poverty,” said Jack, ” either for myself or 
for Lady Ella. ” 

‘‘Nor was 1,” said Windgall. ‘‘1 defied with a light heart, 
and I have borne it for many a year with a heavy one. But this is 
apart from what 1 meant to say. You have talents, as 1 know. I 
suppose you have ambitions?” 

“Yes,” said Jack, *‘ I have ambitions of a sort.” 

” The posts at the disposal of private patronage are fewer than 
they were,” said the earl, ” but everything is not yet handed over 
to the demon of Public Competition. 1 have some little influence. 
1 have never asked a favor in my life, and my long service will 
count for something Your biother has influence also. We must 
combine our forces and find you a post, and you must exert your- 
self for your own advancement. I speak with no fatherl^y partiality, 
when I say that such a wife as my daughter will be, will be of the 
utmost value in such a struggle. She is fitted for social distinction, 
and will secure it. ” 

Jack sat silent for two or three minutes, scarce knowing how to 
begin to break ground. 

” You are very kind, indeed, my lord,” he said at last, ‘‘ but I 
am afraid you have not taken my politics into account.” The earl 
actually groaned at this. ‘‘ Your friends will prefer to keep what 


220 ‘'THE WAY OP THE WOELD.” 

places they have to bestow for those who share their opinions, and 
can be useful to them. ” 

“ My dear Clare,” said Windgall. “ What is the game of politics 
as played in England, or anywhere for that matter? Is there any- 
thing in it at all, but just enough to keep the masses occupied with 
public affairs, and to find the people of better breeding an honorable 
occupation? Does anybody — except here and there an uncultured 
stupid person in the country, and here and there a hot-headed 
fanatic — believe that Gladstone is a demon or Disraeli a demigod, or 
think Gladstone demigod and Disraeli demon? Does anybody 
heliem, as a solid matter of fact, that the country is happier or more 
prosperous under one government than under another? We make a 
prodigious fuss, of course, as to who shall be in and who shall be 
out. That is part of the game, and it finds the masses something in 
which they can take an interest, but to think of taking it in earnest 
between ourselves is reall}’’ a little absurd. When the Tories are in 
the tide rolls out, when the Liberals are in the tide rolls up. The 
tide rises and the tide falls, and we make a noise about it every time, 
and bring out our mops to help it up or keep it dowm, and somehow 
in a kind of way we succeed in persuading ourselves for the moment 
that we have quite an important effect upon it.” 

He spoke very lightly, and wfith a certain air of humor, but he 
looked keenly once or twice at Jack as if to gauge the effect of his 
speech upon him. The young man still pla 5 ^ed seriously with the 
nutcrackers, and seemed to examine them with an attention alto- 
gether unnecessary. 

“ 1 am afraid,” he said, when Windgall paused, “ that 1 take a 
somewhat more serious view of politics than your lordship.” 

” Well, come now,” returned Windgall with a voice of badinage, 
” you don’t tell me that in cool reason you abide by the proclama- 
tions of Gallo wbay. You fi uttered the Tory dovecote, and 1 assure 
you that nobody admired the dash and vigor of your speeches more 
than I. There was a certain happy audacity in them which really 
reminded one of what one reads of Disraeli in his younger days. 
They were capital, and 1 had a laugh at my own expense on more 
than one occasion I assure you. But in cool blood now, Clare, you 
are scarcely so undaunted a political fire-eater? Confess it.” 

” 1 was guilty of a good deal of bad taste, my lord,” Jack con- 
fessed with a blush, ” but in the main I spoke my honest opinions. 
If I disappoint you now, 1 am extremely sorry. There is scarcely 
anything else in which I shall not be proud to allow you to command 
me.” 

” Well, well,” said Windgall, who was more angry than he cared 
to show. ” I can’t ask you to be false to any profound convictions. 
But if the convictions should turn out not to be so very profound 
after all (and to my way of thinking there is no need for any very 
profound political convictions in a countrj^ like England), there 
might be a career opened for you which would find a full scope for 
an honorable ambition. Think it over, Clare, think it over. For 
the present we may leave it. Discussion never converted anybody. 
It only indurates opinion, and makes each of the disputants more 
obstinately attached to his own particular crotchet. Leave the thing 
alone, and 1 may come to your opinion or you may come to mine. 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 


221 


There is a sort of satisfaction in converting one’s self, and a sort of 
scorn of being converted by anybody else. Shall we go back to the 
drawing-room?” 

_ Jack would honestly have prefen-ed to tell him that there was no 
liltelihood of his changing his mind in this respect, but set a check 
upon himself. It would be easy to say all he had to say upon the 
matter when the earl returned to the subject. In the mind of the 
younger man there was a grave disapproval of the elder’s flippancy, 
and a day or two earlier the sentiments to which he had listened 
would have served to confirm him in that base opinion of Wiudgall 
w^hich he had held so long. But in Ella’s presence it was hard to 
think ill of Ella’s father, and he soon brought himself to forgive his 
lordship’s want of political fervor. The thought of politics fled his 
mind as he sat down by the side of his sweetheart. Delightful sad 
word. A little out of fashion perhaps with the people who write of 
the love affairs of ladies and gentlemen nowadays, but still deli^^ht- 
ful. 

They spent a wonderfully quiet evening. Alice sat at the piano 
for a time and played dreamy music, and his lordship had little to 
say for himself, and by and by withdrew, leaving the three young 
people together for a delicious quarter of an hour. No lady of ner 
years would have been expected to have been more discreet than 
Alice at this happy juncture, and she sat womanfully at the piano 
and left the lovers perfectly to themselves until Windgall’s return. 
Jack made prisoner of one of the beautiful slender hands and kissed 
it now and again, but they spoke scarcely a word between them, and 
were content simply with each other’s presence, and that common 
sense of ownership which lovers find so exquisitely flattering to the 
heart. And of course their past sorrow made them happier now, 
and even tranquilized their joy a little. 

My lord returning put an end to this tete-d tete, in which the 
eyes had done all or nearly all the talking, and the four settled 
round the Are like a veritable family party, until at last Jack had to 
go, and to be satisfied with a merely formal leave-taking. But he 
seemed to walk on air, and the early winter night in the sloppy Lon- 
don streets was like a spring morning in Arcadia to him. 

Yet when he gave himself time to think of them, the hopes and 
anticipations Windgall had expressed began to trouble him a little, 
and he was forced to look at his own prospects. A life of idleness, 
even with Ella to share it, was by no means to his mind, and indeed 
the more he 1 bought of her the more he recognized the necessity of 
a life of usefulness. The young fellow in short took his high good 
fortune loftily, and determined not to be unworthy of it. It was pos- 
sible enough, as Montacute had told him long ago, that his love 
affaii-s had influenced his political opinions, but it was certain that 
his political opinions had left a considerable impression on his char- 
acter. Windgall’s proposal was frankly and flatly impossible — a thing 
there could be no two thoughts about in his own mind. He was re- 
solved to be honest and to b^e of some service in the world. It was 
easy to be honest, but it was hard to see in what way he could be 
of use. Could he drag Ella out into that half wild new world, and 
ask her to share his life there? To him, with long thinking of it, it 
had come to seem the noblest and most useful life open to him, to 


22 ^ ''THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

subdue nature, to train the rough shaggy forest into smooth-smiling 
fields of harvest, to be one in the great crowd of men who would 
by and by cheapen bread for the hungry millions of the world. A 
practical honest hope, and, as he thought it, a high practical duty. 
A work, thoroughly fit for him whilst he stood alone, but how about 
it now with this more delicate life in charge? 

It took him some days to come to a definite opinion on this mat- 
ter, but at last he determined to consult Ella herself upon it, and to 
abide by her judgment. Whilst this inward discussion went on the 
“ Patagonia” sailed without him, but the practical man he had en- 
gaged to look after his affairs went with her, and Jack started away 
to appeal to Ella. Calling at his hotel by the way, he ran against 
Major Heard in the vestibule, and noticed on the grisly warrior's 
face an expression of wrath and severity. 

“Ah!” said the major, “the very man I wanted You know 
nothing about it yet? You haven’t heard?” 

Now Jack had seemed so long detested pf the Fates that his heart 
sank a little at the major’s face and voice. 

“ 1 have heard nothing,” he said. “ Nothing at all. What is it?” 

“ Well, it’s confoundedly unpleasant,” said the major. “ We’d 
better go upstairs to your own room and talk it over.” 

Jack led the way, and when they were once closeted together, the 
major drew out of his coat pocket a copy of “ The Way of the 
World,” and indicating Mr. Amelia’s brilliant article with an out- 
stretched forefinger, handed it to his companion. 

“Read that, sir,” said the major. “That fellow’ Kimberley is 
the proprietor of this journal. Money won’t matter to him, confound 
him! But there is plenty of material there for a criminal proceed- 
ing, and I should think he’s good for a year or two.” 

The major stood pulling at his mustache, with first one hand and 
then the other, and watching Jack’s face, on which an expression 
mixed of wrath and wonder gathered as he read. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

“ The scoundrell” cried Jack, when he had finished Mr. Ame- 
lia’s masterpiece. “ The villain!” He crumpled the paper in both 
hands and faced the major. “You have read it all?” 

“ Every word,” replied the major. “ The fellow has given him- 
self into your hands. Don’t be any angrier about it than you can 
help. Do you notice the odd thing about it? All the villainies 
charged against you were actually committed by that fellow Stracey, 
or Bracey, or w'halever his name was. You remember Jii.n? 
They’ve taken his biography and tacked it on to you. That’s all.” 

“ The scoundrels!” cried Jack again. 

It came easj^ to suppose that “ that fellow Kimberley,” as the ma- 
jor called him, was a person capable of any degraded action. 
What, indeed, might be expected from an ill-bred fellow, sprung 
from the lowest ranks of life, who had defeated one of these gentle- 
men in a parliamentary contest, and had outbid the other for the 
matrimonial prize? But neither Major Heard nor Jack Clare had 
hitherto charged him with anything so bad as this. What was said 


223 


‘^THE AVAY OF THE WOULD.” 

of Clare was simply and purely absurd— the slightest breath would 
blow that away for good and all — but it was the attack on l^dy 
Ella which betrayed the dark spot in the discarded lover’s heart. 

“ You don’t know why his lordship got rid of him?” asked the 
major. 

“ No,” said Jack, “ I never asked.” Of course so old and close 
a friend as the major knew all the young man’s happy news. 

He told me enough to make me understand that he had found out 
how unhappy she was. ’ ’ 

” Found him out in some confounded snobbery, and gave him his 
discharge at once, most probably,” said the major. “ Windgall was 
always poor, but he was never a dishonorable man. It was always 
a matter of wonder to me, poor as he was, that he ever brought him- 
self to consent for a moment to such a match. You may depend 
upon it,” said the major, nodding sapiently, “ that Windgall found 
him out and sent him packing, and that he imagined this in revenge. 
Of course the little skunk couldn’t write it himself. That other lit- 
tle rascal, that Amelia, used to write his speeches for him.” 

So limited a thing is earthly fame, in spite of the most assiduous 
puffing, that neither Jack nor the major knew of Mr. Amelia’s con- 
nection with ” The Way of the World.” 

” To talk about the vindication of your own character in a case 
of this kind,” pursued the major, “ would be absurd, because 
nobody is at all likely to believe this bundle of lies. But you must 
punish the scoundrel, too. What do you think of doing, to begin 
with?” 

‘‘ I hardly know,” said Jack. ” 1 ought to see Windfall at once, 
1 suppose, but it is an unpleasant thing to do. If this shameless 
thing came to Lady Ella’s ears — ” He could not speak for mingled 
rage and shame. 

” Go and see Windgall,” said the major. “ I remember a case 
something like this, when ‘ The Scourge ’ fell foul of Collard of 
the sixteenth. It was stopped the first day because they hadn’t 
‘ proved publication,’ as they call it. I’ll go down to the office of 
this confounded paper, sir, and I’ll see the editor, and tell him in 
your name that you intend to institute criminal proceedings. I am 
not altogether ignorant of the proper way to go about these things. 
I’ll buy a paper, and I’ll tell him what I’m buying it for. The law 
lays down certain rules in these matters. You do the same if you 
want anything analyzed. You go and see Windgall. I’ll go and 
see the editor. ’ ’ 

The major put on his glasses and hunted over the copy of “ The 
Way of the World ” for the address of the publisher, and having 
found it, handed the paper to Clare, folded his glasses, resumed his 
hat and gloves and, with a more than usually military gait, depait- 
ed. The major was essentially warlike, and the stern joy that war- 
riors feel illumined his bosom, and made his self-imposed task 
almost a pleasure to him, notwithstanding his anger and contempt. 

The office of ” The Way of the World ” was situated in a retired 
court off the Strand, and he had some little difficulty in finding it. 
He entered with majestic calm, and demanded of the stalwart Scot- 
tish graduate who sat in a screened corner writing, the whereabouts 
of the editor. 


224 ‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

“ Oblige me with your name, sir,” said the courteous secretary. 
“ I’ll see"^if he is within.” 

The. major produced a card and handed it to the Scot, who slid 
sedately into the inner room, and having closed the door behind him 
presented the piece of pasteboard to his chief. Mr. Amelia sat in 
the little revolving chair at his customary desk, with by no means 
his customary air of crisp assurance. As a matter of fact Mr. W eb- 
ling — though it has taken some time to bring up the other side of 
the narrative to this point — had but just left the office after the de- 
livery of his awful news, and Mr. Amelia was a good deal unnerved 
b}’- his disclosures. He look the card abstractedly, but he jumped 
when he saw the name. 

” Tell him,” he said with a manner which was in strange con- 
trast with his ordinary self-assertiveness, “ that 1 am particularly 
engaged. Tell him to write. ” 

The private secretary returned with this message to Major Heard. 

“ Tell him,” said the major, who had no remotest idea as yet of 
the editor’s personality, “ that i desire to see him personally, and at 
once. ’ ’ 

The private secretary returned to Mr. Amelia with this message. 

“I can’t see him,” said the editor, almost with a groan. “I 
won’t see him.” Nobody would have been less welcome than Major 
Heard at any moment, and that he should appear now before Mr. 
Amelia had had time to gathered his shattered wits from the shock 
Webling had given them was quite dreadful. “ Tell him he must 
write. ’ ’ 

With good-humored simple courtesy the secretary came back 
again. 

“ Tell the editor,” said Major Heard, “ that 1 insist upon seeing 
him.” He spoke in a raised voice, and the editor hearing him, 
rumpled his upstanding hair with both hands and moaned. ‘ ‘ Tell 
him that 1 will not go until I have seen him.” 

” He is really very busily engaged, sir,” said the secretary. 

“ The business on which 1 have to speak to him,” said Major 
Heard, “ is much more important to him than anything on which 
he is likely to be engaged at present. Oblige me by telling him that 
I insist upon an interview. 

There was no need for the secretary to deliver this last message, 
for the major’s voice was very warlike and distinct, and every sylla- 
ble had reached the editor’s ears. 

“ Show him in,” said Mr. Amelia, springlessly. 

The major entered with his eyeglass stuck fiercely in his right 
eye, and glaring round beheld Mr. Amelia in the revolving chair. 
The secretary had closed the door, and w^as back in the screened 
corner again. Seeing Mr. Amelia, the major started. 

“Eh?” he said, his fierce expression merging into a sardonic 
smile. ” So you are the editor of this precious publication, are 
you?” 

“ May 1 ask the nature of your business?” said Mr. Amelia, with 
a feeble effort to assume his customary manner. 

A copy of “ The Way of the World ” la}^ open on the editor’s 
desk, and the brilliant article on the High- Life episode was upper- 
most. Mr. Amelia had indeed been looking at it, and trying to see 


‘^THE WAY OF THE Y'OHLT),’- 


225 

if it were possible to quibble over it, and pretend that it was not 
meant to apply to Lady Ella and Windgall and Jack Clare. But 
his own workmanship had been too neat and sound. He had 
clinched the nail of identity so well that there was no withdrawing 
it. The major caught sight of the journal, and dropping his eye- 
glass, stooped until his nose almost touched the paper. Then, his 
fancy being confirmed he drew himself upright, stuck the glass in 
his eye once more and tapped the paper with his cane. 

“ Is that piece of rascality your work, sir?” he demanded. 

Half-a-dozen retorts chased each other through Mr. Amelia’s 
mind, but he employed no one of them. He remembered that Cap- 
tain Clare and Major Heard were friends, and the dreadful truth 
was plain to him. This visit was the preliminary to legal proceed- 
ings. 

“ Is that piece of rascality your work, sir?” he demanded anew, 
tapping the offending article so loudly that the private secretary 
started at the sound. 

‘‘You must surely be aware, sir,” said Mr. Amelia, rousing him- 
self to the occasion, “that a question offered in that tone and in 
those terms is not one which you, yourself, would answer.” 

“ Did you wTite that article, sir,” cried the major. “ Is that 
blackguard article yours, sir?” 

Mr. Amelia was not wanting in courage of a certain sort, but then 
he was so very small a man that he could not resist a consciousness 
of his own helplessness in comparison with a man like Major Heard, 
and when the major put this question he struck the table so resound- 
ingly in his wrath, and brought his cane to the slope with so military 
a gesture that the editor’s heart became as water within him, and he 
responded meekly. 

“ To which article do you allude, sir?” 

“ That,” cried the major, bringing down his stick again, “ that, 
sir.” 

Mr. Amelia looked carefully at the article, and did not even see 
it, he was so disturbed. 

“ It is not customary to reveal the names of our authors,” he an- 
swered. “ But I have just learned, to my great re^et, that this 
article has been written on insufficient grounds, and — 

“Insufficient grounds, sir,” cried the major. “Insufficient 
grounds? There is not one grain of truth in 'the whole infamous 
tissue of lies,” The major was apt to mix his similes when excited. 
He had spoken once of Mr. Amelia as of a Snake in the Grass who 
bit the hand that fed him, and his public speeches w'ere resplendent 
with that sort of jewel. “ I am here, sir, in behalf of my friend, 
Captain Clare, formally to purchase a copy of your abominable 
journal, and to inform you that he intends to institute immediate 
criminal proceedings against the writer of the article, the editor, and 
the proprietor.” 

“ The article,” said Mr. Amelia, “ was written under a complete 
misapprehension of the facts. Our next issue will contain a com- 
plete retractation and apology.” 

“ Oblige me with a copy of the paper,” said the major. 

“ ’The retractation,” said Mr. Amelia, “ shall be made as full and 
complete as possible.” . _ 

8 


226 ‘'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

“lam not authorized to accept any apology,” returned the major, 
“ nor, 1 am persuaded, will any apology he accepted by my friend. 
We shall press this scandalous matter to the end. We shall press 
for the extreme rigor of the law.” 

This was very dreadful to Mr. Amelia. 

“ 1 assure you, Major Heard,” he protested, “ that the article was 
written in error, not in malice.” 

“ Not in malice?” demanded the major, with frosty indignation. 
The apparent insolence of this statement cooled him on a sudden. 
“ If you can induce a jury to believe that Mr. Kimberley was act- 
uated by no enmity to Captain Clare when he inspired this ar- 
ticle — ” Mr. Amelia cut him short. 

“ Mr. Kimberley,” he cried, “ was utterly ignorant of the article. 
It was written without his knowledge, and printed without his 
knowledge.” The major stared at this, and Mr. Amelia hurried 
along. Affairs were looking desperate, and if anything were to be 
done at all it could only be done by making a clean breast of it. 
“ The article was written by me as a matter of fact, sir, and I re- 
gret deeply that I was induced to write without further examina- 
tion into the statements that were laid before me.” 

“ That is very natural,” said the major. 

“ The information,” pursued Mr. Amelia, “ came from a source 
which we have hitherto found to be perfectly trustworthy. But it 
appears that my informant confounded the career of Captain Clare 
with that of a Captain Stracey, so that really the article does not re- 
flect upon Captain Clare at all.” 

“lam very pleased to hear that,” said the old warrior grimly. 

“ The whole history refers to another person,” cried Mr. Amelia. 

“Well, sir,” said the major, “I had intended this visit to be 
purely formal, and nothing but this unexpected meeting with an 
old friend, whom 1 have such sound reasons for admiring, would 
have induced me to prolong it. You will have an opportunity of 
establishing your employer’s innocence and your own ill fortune 
before a jury, sir. For the present 1 will only ask you to supply 
me with a copy of your last issue.” 

Mr. Amelia somewhat feebly opened the door, and Major Heard 
passed into the outer room. 

“ Give this gentleman a copy of this week’s paper,” said the ed- 
itor. The secretary proffered a paper to the major, who opened it to 
verifjr it with the one he desired to purchase. “Oh!” cried Mr. 
Amelia, anxious to propitiate, “ that’s of no consequence.” 

The major, who had drawn out his purse to pay, drew forth a 
sixpence and rung it on the counter, and then bestowing the journal 
in his breast-pocket, turned upon his heel and marched into the 
court. Mr. Amelia had so long been present to his mind as a little 
crawling flgure of baseness, that he was rather pleased than other- 
wise to find in him the author of this obnoxious article. The major 
could feel no compunction over the punishment of Mr. Amelia, 
nothing but that grim rejoicing with which, according to the creed 
of some, a good man is justified in regarding the castigation of a 
sinner. There are others, a mere sentimental few, perhaps, who 
feel that it is hard measure to be a sinner, and who can find the 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 227 

same sort of pity for a liar as for a hunchback, for an egotist as a 
deaf man, for a thief as for a paralytic. 

The clever little self-seeker and time-server went back into the 
editorial sanctum with a limp and sickly air, and sitting down with 
his head between his hands and his elbows on the desk, tried fo see 
a way out of this culde sac and found none. The best way of miti- 
gating his own chances of suffering would be to make a full and 
complete apology. If it told’with nobody else it might tell with the 
judge. Awful fancy. Mr. Amelia saw the judge — dreadful in scar- 
let and ermine and a wig, and heard him say “Prisoner at the 
bar.” Great Heaven! what a position for a respectable man to be 
placed in. The fancy actually nerved him and he seized a pen and 
wrote — 

“ To the editor of the ” (there he left a blank) “ Sir, — 1 rely 

upon your kindness to assist me in dissipating a scandal of which 1 
myself am the unfortunate propagator. Relying upon information 
derived from a source which has hitherto been absolutely trust- 
worthy, 1 consented to the insertion of an article in ‘ The Way of 
the World ’ which reflects seriously upon the character of a gentle- 
man whom 1 now discover to be perfectly innocent of the charges 
made against him. The article is entitled ‘A Story of High Life, ’ 
and appeared in the issue of the 9th instant. I desire to express my 
profoundest regret for its insertion, and my conviction that it is 
totally without foundation. A threat of legal proceedings has 
already been made. It is not in deference to that threat, but 
from an earnest desire to clear the character of a gentleman who 
has been mistakenly aspersed, that 1 write this letter. I am, sir, 
your obedient servant, the editor of ‘ The Way of the World.’ ” 

Mr. Amelia labored long and anxiously at this letter, and had to 
doctor and tinker it a good deal before he got it to this shape. But 
when he had finished it he read it over half l dozen times, and be- 
came satisfied that there was ah air of manly candor and regret 
about it which could scarcely fail to have its effect upon the awful 
personage in the wig and ermine, when his time should come. He 
was especially hopeful in respect to that artful admission that threats 
of legal proceedings had already been made. It looked artless, and 
as if the writer were too eager to exculpate the maligned gentleman 
to have time to consider his own wisest words. 

He felt keenly that under ordinaiy circumstances an editor would 
have a wider shield of anonymity than he had left himself. He had 
been so anxious to be seen that he had chopped that shelter all 
away, and now he was a little soiTy for it. To his own mind there 
could hardly be an intelligent creature alive who was unaware that 
“ The Way of the World ” was conducted by Mr. William Amelia. 
Now he could have wished that he had claiioned that fact a little 
less. 

“ Make copies of that for each of the London dailies,” he said to 
his private secretary. “ Write them on office paper, put them in 
office envelopes, and post them immediately.” 

The secretary laughed to himself as he read the letter, and smiled 
softly all the while as he copied it. Nobody liked Mr. Amelia, and 


228 


“THE WAY OF THE WOULD.” 

almost anybody who knew him took a pleasure in any small dis- 
comfiture which might befall him. The little editor sat mournful 
whilst the secretary sat smiling, and the vision in the wig and the 
ermine assumed at moments a distinctness which was downright 
uncomfortable. 

Whilst all this was enacting with the libeler, the libeled betook 
himself with extreme reluctance to the Earl of Windfall. 

“ My lord,” said Jack when he was shown into Windgall’s room, 
“lam here on an unhappy errand. 1 scarcely know how to explain 
it. Perhaps 1 had better ask you at once if you have seen or heard 
of this article?” 

His lordship, receiving the article quietly enough, had scarce read 
half a dozen lines when he began to fidget in his chair as if some 
person unseen were sticking needles into him. Mr. Amelia’s 
charming article began with his lordship, around whom he danced 
with a &ort of elfish grotesquerie. Firing stinging crackers, as it 
were, the while and launching stinging Liliputian darts. There was 
no disputing the small man’s cleverness. Even the injured noble- 
man could feel that he was attacked by a master in the art of saying 
nasty things, and not by any common penny-a-liner and maligner. 
The worst of it was for Windgall. that whilst there was no mistak- 
ing the portrait, there was not a ghost of a chance for an action. 
But as his lordship read on a smile began to irradiate his features, 
and he not only ceased to writhe, but read with an actual aspect of 
contentment. 

“ Well, Clare,” he said, when he had gone right through his 
task, “ this is really your afluir and not mine.” 

“ It was needful that you should see it,” said Jack. 

“ It was certainly advisable that 1 should see it,” said his lord- 
ship, taking his share of the article with stoicism, now that he had got 
over the first astonishment of it. “ So you are a horse-coper and a 
card-sharper, and 1 am — well, I am a number of disagreeable 
things. What steps do you intend to take? Have you any idea of 
the identity of the author. God bless my soul,” he cried, with sud- 
den amazement, “ it’s ‘ The Way of the World.’ It can’t be. It’s 
a boffus copy,” said the earl to himself. 

“ I do not as yet know the name of the author, but I know the 
name of the proprietor.” 

“ The proprietor?” said the eail, automatically. “ Yes. Cer- 
tainly, one knows the proprietor.” 

“1 presurne,” said Jack, “that whatever steps are taken must 
be taken against him. I am advised to take criminal proceedings — ” 

“ Impossible!” cried Windgall. “ Impossible! My dear Clare, 
you don’t know what you are saying.” 

“Impossible, my lord?” cried Clare in answer. “I recognize 
the unpleasantness of the situation to the full, but surely there are 
scarcely any circumstances in the world which could make it possi- 
ble to pass by so gross a scandal. ” 

“ Sit down, Clare,” said his lordship. “I must make a clean 
breast of it, or you can never understand. You do know the name 
of the proprietor? Who is it?” 

“ Mr. Bolsover Kimberley is the proprietor,” said Jack. 

“ My friend Bolsover Kimberley,” said his lordship, “ is the pro- 


229 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.’’ 

prietor of this paper, and is as innocent of this outrage and as in- 
capable of it as any man alive. Mr. Kimberley has acted with a 
tact, a delicacy, a sense of honor and a generosity in this whole 
matter, which are beyond praise.” Jack looked at his lordship 
open-eyed. ” You are aware,” said his lordshp, with a momentary 
shamefacedness, ” that Mr. Kimberley made a proposal for the 
hand of my eldest daughter, and that his proposal was accepted.” 
The listener bowed with a face of scarlet. “I am a poor man, as 
you know, and it appears that Ella fancied she saw a way of reliev- 
ing me of my embarrassments. It was for ray sake, and for my 
sake only, that she consented to listen to Mr. Kimberley’s proposals. 
When I asked her,” continued his lordship, who could not help 
being disingenuous now and then, ” if that was not her object, she 
assured me that she would not be unhappy in the match. But Kim- 
berley saw that she detested it, and that she was suffering because 
of it. He came to me, and, in the most delicate manner in the 
world, he released her. He did more. He informed me of her at- 
tachment to yourself, and he — he made proposals of a — of a business 
nature which resulted in my being able to send for you. Indeed, 1 
must tell you that he insisted upon my sending for you. And our — 
our business aiTangements were of such a character that if he had 
pleased he could have ruined me. In — in short,” said his lordship, 
who stumbled more and more, until he found himself forced into 
candor, “it is to him you owe your present position here. He re- 
tired, for Ella’s sake, in your favor.” 

At this prodigious news Jack sat stunned and dazed, and his lord- 
ship, arising, began to walk about the room. 

” Let me tell you another thing, Clare, to show you how impos- 
sible it is that Kimberley should have had any cognizance of this 
article. His proposal to Lady Ella was not dictated, as I own I 
thought it was at first, by any desire to gild his money by an alli- 
ance with an old family. He loved her, Clare.” 

At this Jack rose also and walked quickly to the window. That 
Ella’s father should say that Kimberley had loved her was like a 
blasphemy against her. He did not think it so, but felt it so. 

” He loved her so well,” pursued the earl, ” and it so broke his 
heart to surrender her, that he lies here, in this house, in this hotel, 
now, at this hour, sick to death of brain fever, and her name is al- 
ways on his lips. I am at a loss to say how I feel this.^ I am 
altogether at a loss to say how keenly it touches me. I despised the 
man, and he is worth a thousand of such men as I am.” 

His lordship enjoyed his own emotion and his own self-de- 
preciation, and yet he was honestly moved, as he had been from 
the first moment of his real understanding of it, by Kimberley’s 
self-abnegation. He could not bring himself greatly to like Clare 
just at present, but Ella’s new happiness and the new beauty he 
saw in her face touched him so keenly that he could do no less than 
welcome Clare’s return for her sake. The long-forgotten glad 
smile, and the happy heart whose sweet refiected light it was, were 
Kimberley’s gifts to him and her, and there were times when they 
far outweighed that solid ninety-thousand pounds, which had once 
seemed the heavier. 


230 ‘'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

“ May I ask you,” said Jack, speaking from the window, where 
it was that Mr. Kimberley made this generous appeal in my behalf?” 

“ His first appeal in your behalf,” said Windgall, “ was made at 
Gallowbay, on the day I met you there.” 

“ The day,” said Jack, inwardly, “ on which 1 insulted him.” 

” He appears to have seen you,” said the earl, rather awkwardly, 
” whilst he was on his way to me, that afternoon.” 

” Did he tell you what happened between us?” asked Clare. 

” No,” said Windgall. ” 1 did not know that you had spoken to 
him.” 

” Is he dangerously ill, my lord?” Clare asked, after a lengthy 
pause. 

” He has had a relapse,” said his lordship. “ The doctors are less 
hopeful than they were. ’ ’ Then, after another lengthy pause, “You 
see, Clare,” Windgall said, “how innocent Kimberley is of this 
blackguard business. You must find out who the writer is, and 
compel him to a complete retractation of this farrago of nonsense, 
though, as a matter of fact, nobody will do more than laugh at it. 
By the way, don’t 1 remember something of all this, about some fel- 
low, a Cumberland man, an army man? I seem to remember that 
something of the kind happened a year or two ago.” 

“Yes,” said Jack. “His name was Stracey. He went away. 
People lost sight of him. Somebody told me he was a billiard-marker 
at Dublin, but nothing is quite sure about him now.” 

“ Ah!” said my lord, “ and they have bestowed his history on you. 
Very agreeable, certainly.” 

“ My friend. Major Heard,” said Jack, “ went to the ofilce this 
morning, to say that criminal proceedings would be taken.” 

“ Against whom can you proceed?” asked Windgall. “lama 
legislator, certainly, but I am no lawyer, and 1 don’t understand 
these things. Whatever you do, don’t make a move without legal 
advice. And do nothing that will cause poor Kimberley trouble,” 
he added. ‘ ‘ Heaven only knows whether he will ever wake to know 
of this ; but if he does it will be a deeper wound to him than it has 
been either to you or to me.” 

Jack took his news to Major Heard, and next day all the leading 
journals published Mr. Amelia’s apology. The “ Herald ” had an 
article about it, for Mr. Amelia was associated with the “ Constitu- 
tional,” and it and the “ Herald ” were natural enemies.” 

“ The gentleman whose character was thus scandalously attacked, ” 
said the “ Herald,” “ did not even stand in need of this withdrawal 
of the libel. As associated with him the whole series of charges was 
no less than frantically absurd, and the editor of ‘ The Way of the 
World ’ had but to ask one who was no more acquainted with the 
grand monde tfian a flunky might be, to have discovered that an old 
story had been affixed to a new name, and palmed off upoa him as a 
fresh and original scandal.” 

Jack Clare, in the unprofessional innocence of his heart, imagined 
that this was written by somebody who knew him, as it well might 
have been, since he had been for years a familiar figure about the 
clubs where journalists most do conp-egate. But, as it happened, 
the gentleman who thus wrote in his defense, had never heard of 
him, and did not know to whom the libelous article alluded. The 


^^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.'’ 231 

grand monde was not his particular study, but he disliked Amelia, 
and was pleased to have a dig at him. 

Mr. Amelia, in next week’s issue of “ The Way of the World,” 
published a new retractation in large type, prompted thereto by a 
dread of the ghost in wig and ermine, and he awaited in melancholy 
mood the first note of those criminal proceedings which Major Heard 
had threatened. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

^ On a certain morning Bolsover Kimberley awoke to find himself 
little more than skin and bone — the skin extremely pallid and trans- 
parent, and the bone so heavy that each hand seemed to weigh a 
hundredweight. He discovered that his hair and his whiskers had 
alike been removed, and on first seeing himself in a glass he laughed 
himself into a feeble hysteria, out of which he fell in a moment into 
deep sleep. He awoke again feeling wonderfully like a child, and 
like a child he was washed and fed and tended. For some days he 
did not care much about anything. The past lay dead with a strange 
dead pall upon it, the present was languid and uninteresting, and it 
seemed as if there were no such thing as a future in store for him at 
all. 

Windgall was assiduous in his attentions to the invalid, and saw 
as much of him as the doctors permitted, being moved to a genuine 
gratitude and esteem, which, as may be acknowledged, Kimberley 
had well earned at his hands. There was no longer any question in 
my lord’s mind as to the propriety of accepting Kimberley’s gift, and 
assurance had been made doubly sure on that point by the burning 
of all the documents. After that it was of no use to have any qualms 
about them, and perhaps my lord had chosen the best as well as the 
readiest way out of his perplexities. There was some little remaining 
sense of humiliation, but there was no dishonor in the acceptance of 
the gift, and Windgall tried to atone to himself by thinking very 
highly of the giver. His appreciation of Kimberley’s high qualities 
was continually on the stretch, so that in point of fact he rather 
bored himself with Kimberley than otherwise, and constantly flogged 
' his own senses of gratitude and admiration, until that willing pair 
showed signs of overwork, and ref used to stir at all without the lash. 
After the first dull days which succeeded his return to reason, the 
sore places in Kimberley’s heart naturally began to throb and ache 
again, but his pains were subdued in comparison with what they had 
been, and they scarcely retarded his recovery. Ella and Alice had 
taken up their quarters with an old friend of their mother’s, who 
had a curious craze for residing far into the winter months in Lon- 
don, a fancy which for once in a way proved convenient, though it 
was execrated by all the people who had expectations from her, and 
were compelled to follow her example. Windgall lived on at the 
hotel and nursed his patient. 

Jack Clare felt his own position in ^regard to Kimberley to be 
altogether singular, and he found it dififieult to think of his self- 
sacrificing rival without a constant shame. But for that interview 
in the King’s Avenue he would have had little for which to blame 
himself in connection with Kimberley ; but he flushed with anger 


2S2 ^^THE WAT OE THE WORLD.’’ 

and mortification many and manj^ a time when he thou^t of that 
scene, and of his own brutal and inexcusable behavior. For Jack's 
scheme about Kimberley had necessarily undergone a wonderful 
change, and in his eyes the little man wore a sort of halo.^^ 

Every day saw him at the hotel making inquiries after Kimberley’s 
progress toward recovery. 

“ You needn’t tell him 1 called, sir,” said the young man to Wind- 
gall, ” but 1 like to know how he is getting on.” 

Day by day the doctors were more confident of complete recovery, 
and in a while the invalid was strong enough to be sent to a watering- 
place on the South Coast, where he wandered mournful and alone, 
and stared a good deal at the melancholy main, and on the whole 
found life hardly worth the living. It happened one day that he had 
a little overtaxed his strength in walking, and had to stand still in 
the middle of the parade. His head swam so with weakness and 
fatigue that he lurched a little, and was relieved to find a strong arm 
thrust within his own, and to hear a voice proffering assistance. 
When he had reached one of the small glass- roofed resting-places 
with which the whole length of the parade is dotted, and had been 
gently seated there, he looked up for the first time and recognized 
his assistant. It was no other than the honorable Captain Clare, 
who, with genuine concern and friendship in his eyes, stood bending 
over him, and blushing like a schoolboy. 

“You are still very weak,” said Captain Clare. “ Do you think 
it quite safe to venture out alone just yet?” 

“ I walked too far,” returned Kimberley, feebly. “ That’s all.” 

“ You don’t mind my sitting with you a little while?” asked Clare. 

“Thank you,” answered Kimberley. “You are very kind.” 

Then for a time they were both silent. The millionaire shrank 
somewhat in his own heart from Captain Clare, and found his pres- 
ence a reminder of a pain which needed no reminder. The sight of 
him galled the sore place in Kimberley’s heart. “ I am quite right, 
now,” said the little man, after some two or three minutes had gone 
by. 

“ Let me offer you my^ arm,” said Clare, with unwonted shyness. 

“ No, thank you,” said Kimberley. “I’m not so weak as you* 
think I am. I’m not, really.” 

“ Do, pray, let me help you,” urged the repentant and pitiful 
Jack, and Kimberley yielded, half to something beseeching in the 
tone, and half to his own shyness. “ 1 think you are staying at the 
Queen’s Hotel?” 

“Yes,” answered Kimberley. 

‘‘ I saw you leave it an hour ago,” said Jack; and then they went 
on in silence, Kimberley finding the stalwart arm a real help to him, 
but wishing it and its owner far removed. 

When they reached the hotel, he put out a feeble little hand, and 
bade his assistant good- day. “lam very much obliged to you, 1 
am sure,” he said, meekly, and Jack stood to watch him, with some 
compunctions in his heart, as he walked slowly up the steps. 

'ihe millionaire was out again in the afternoon, and was unaware 
of the fact that Captain Clare watched him throughout his brief 
ramble as carefully as a nurse might watch a child. But next day 


•^^THE WAY OP THE WORLD.’’ 233 

lie saw him, and sore-hearted as he was, could do no less than recog- 
nize him. Jack crossed over and shook hands. 

“ You are looking better to-day,” he said. 

“Yes,” said Kimberley, wearily. “ 1 am getting stronger every 
day.” The balance had turned in favor of life, and he would have 
to go on living. It was a sorrowful business, and he would rather 
have had no more to do with it. 

“May I walk a little way with you?” asked the other, gently. 
“ Will you take my arm?” 

They went on side by side slowly, and in a while Kimberley sat 
down upon an overturned boat which lay on the sands, just here- 
abouts as firm as marble. The day was mild and clear, and the sea 
heaved gently like the breast of a child asleep. There was nobody 
within two or three hundred yards of them, and they could hear the 
sound of a child’s prattle and laughter without distinguishing her 
words. 

“ Mr. Kimberley,” said Jack, breaking on the silence with a 
tremulous voice, “ 1 have to go back to town to-morrow, and we 
may not meet again for a long time. Will you let me say how hon- 
estly ashamed 1 am to have insulted such a noble heart as yours. ’ ’ 

“ No, no,” said Kimberley, appealingly. “ Please don’t say any- 
thing.” 

“ I came down here,” continued Jack, in spite of this, “ on pur- 
pose to beg your pardon. The first time we met I spoke in igno- 
rance and passion, and I am profoundly ashamed of the words 1 
used. 1 beg you to forgive them, and to dismiss them from your 
mind.” 

“ Please say no more,” Kimberley again besought him. “ I de- 
served everything that happened.” He leaned his chin dejectedly 
upon his breast, and pushed the point of his cane about in the firm 
sands. 

“I see that 1 distress you, Mr. Kimberley,” said Jack, gently 
and sadly. “ But 1 beg j^ou to think of me, if you think of me at 
all, as the most grateful and devoted of your friends.” 

There was something which bordered on the grotesque in this 
situation, and it does not happen every day that one lover has to 
thank another for giving up his sweetheart. In Jack Clare’s case 
words seemed altogether inefficient, and for Kimberley, they could 
be, at least at present, of very little value, if of any. 

“It is not always the best man who wins,” said the winner to 
himself, and at that moment he felt thoroughly that Kimberley was 
his better. 

“ It is very kind of you to say so,” answered Kimberley, after a 
longish pause, in response to the last words Clare had spoken aloud. 
There was another lengthy pause, and it was again broken by Kim- 
berley. “ I should not like you to think,” he said, looking up for 
an instant, “that I don’t accept what you have said, in a proper 
spirit. It is very kind of you to have come here to say it, and I am 
very much obliged to you. It was no excuse for me, but I did not 
know that I was standing in 3mur light.” 

He bent his head a little lower, and went on pushing the point of 
his cane about, and Clare standing over him saw one or two glitter- 
ing drops fall down upon the broken sands at his feet. He turned 


234 ^^THE 'VVAY OF THE WOULD.” 

away at this with a sense of tiglitness in the throat, and paced up 
and down, until Kimberle}’^ arose and approached him. 

“ Good-by,” said the little millionaire, extending his hand. 
” Please give my kindest regards to his lordship when 3 "ou see him. ” 
He shook hands and turned away. ” 1 am sure,” he said, with his 
face thus hidden, ” that 1 hope j^ou may be happy.” 

Clare stood stupidly by the boat’s side, feeling in an odd way quite 
foiled, though he had done all he came to do, and his apology had 
been amply accepted. There was a gulf between Kirnberley and 
himself, and was always likely to be; and yet if the thing had not 
been downright impossible he would like to have bridged it over. 
One man had rarely had — or so he thought — so much reason for 
gratitude and friendship toward another, as he had for both toward 
Kimberley. 

So he went back to town, but little the better for that honest 
en’and which had brought him away from it. 

The millionaire walking back to his hotel, bearing his sores with 
him, found Mr. Begg awaiting him. He had forgotten for a while 
that he had written requesting his presence. 

” Lord Windgall tells me that you have been seriously ill,” said 
the lawyer. “You hardl}'^ look recovered jret. ” 

“1 am not very strong,” returned Kimberley, “but the doctors 
tell me that 1 am out of danger.” He sighed at this as if it were no 
great good news for him. 

“ That’s well,” said the lawyer, heartily. “ I suppose that the 
business concerning which you wished to see me is pressing. It is 
a considerable journey from Gallo wbay to Hastings.” 

He laughed and rubbed his hands, thinking that the head of so 
respectable a firm as his own could scarcely be expected to travel as 
far for nothing, and half apologizing in his manner for that com- 
fortable reflection. 

“Yes,” said Kimberley, his pale face flushing a little; “ the busi- 
ness is pressing, or 1 seem to feel it so. 1 want to make my will. 
One never knows what may happen, and 1 think 1 ought to make 
my will.” 

“Certainly’, certainly, certainly,” cried Mr. Begg. “In this 
world there is nothing certain but uncertainty. It’s astonishing to 
notice how many men neglect to aiTange their affairs in that way.” 

“ If you could take my instructions now, Mr. Begg,” said Kim- 
berley, rising and walking to the window with evident embarrass- 
ment, “ 1 should be obliged.” 

A year ago he would scarcely have dared to talk of offering in- 
structions to Mr. Begg, but he was falling naturally into the phrases 
used by other people, and was hardly like the Kimberley of old daj^s 
at all. 

“ Certainly,” said Mr. Begg, seating himself at a table on which 
were pen, ink, and paper. 

“ 1 want to leave everything of which 1 may die possessed, with- 
out any condition or reserve, to Lad}’^ Ella Santerre.” 

“Yes?” said Mr. Begg lingeringly, and awaited Kimberley’s next 
word. Kimberley, on turning to look out of the window, and offer- 
ing no further word, Mr. Begg himself broke the silence. “ That 
is m case Lady Ella should outlive you. In case she should not?” 


235 


‘^THE WAY OF THE WOBLD.” 

“ To lier cliilclren,” said poor Kimberley, almost inaudibly. 

“ And failing- children?” asked Mr. Begg, purposely employing a 
dry business tone to hide his own knowledge of his client’s embar- 
rassment. Kimberley was silent for so long a time that Mr, Begg 
was again compelled to break the silence. “You see, Mr. Kimber- 
ley, ” he said turning round in his chair, and making as if he ad- 
dressed himself confidentially to the wedge he formed of his own 
fingers, “ you are bequeathing a great fortune, a great fortune, and 
that is not a thing which can be done in a single sentence. The 
world is full of uncertainties. Nobody knows that much more 
practically than a lawyer. And in making a will one must take 
into account a good many possible contingencies.” 

Kimberley saw this quite clearly, but it was not what he had 
wanted or expected. He wns still very feeble from his recent 
fever, and the weakness of his body had weakened his heart some- 
what. He had never been a strong creature, and the one strong thing 
in his life had been his love for Ella. That had been strong enough 
to enable him to renounce all hope of her for the sake of her happi- 
ness, which was infinitely dearer to him than his own. But in this 
new falling back upon his own nature, which followed upon his 
one heroism, he had got some sentimental comfort — it would be a 
hard heart that could laugh at it — out of the hope and belief that he 
would die, and that Ella would be enriched by his death, and that 
he would be finally not only out of the way of her happiness, but 
the actual promoter and crowner of it. He meant to dower Lady 
Ella with everything, and then to die as speedily as Heaven should 
will. The contingencies the lawyer brought in view made a com- 
monplace business of something which ought to have been alto- 
gether removed from commonplace. There are few things more 
shocking than this kind of unescapable incongruity to those whose 
nature it is to feel it. There are some people who would not be hurt 
if Othello stopped in his rage of remorse to reckon the cost of 
Desdemona’s coffin, but there are others who want their words to be 
of a piece, and who feel altogether disconcerted by the intrusion of 
any incongruous element. 

He sat "down without heart or interest to advise with the lawyer 
on the disposal to be made of his money in case his original inten- 
tions should be frustrated, and talked about the Gallowbay Harbor 
and a Hospital and a Grammar School and a Church and a Chapel 
for Gallowbay, and an annual benefaction for the poor, for Kimber- 
ley had not, so far as he knew, a single blood relation in the world. 

The will grew into a formal and lengthy document in the course 
of a week or two, far removed from "Kimberley’s first simple and 
romantic notion, and when he came to read it, the long-familiar 
jargon of its phrases — the aforementioned, and the hereinafter-to- 
be-mentioned, and the freehold tenement with all the appurtenances 
thereto belonging, together with the mines and minerals thereunder 
— seemed to carry him back into the time of his servitude. 

In brief, his heart had made a poem of this last will and testa- 
ment, and the lawyers had turned it into prose. It is not every 
poem that will bear translating into prose, and the £iuthor, of all 
men, is little likely to be charmed by the translation. 

Mr. Begg knew pretty fairly the truth of Kimberley’s story, and 


236 '‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

curiously enough had a high respect for the romance of it. But 
during his client’s illness he had read, as almost everybody had done, 
Mr. Amelia’s masterpiece in “ The Way of the World,” and know- 
ing Kimberley’s connection with that journal was somewhat puz- 
zled. 

” 1 have never been out of England in my life,”^ said Kimberley, 
when the will had been read and signed and witnessed, ‘‘and 1 
think I shall go and travel. I don’t know, but I mayn’t be back 
for a long while, and — I’ve never been much good in parliamentary 
life. 1 shall ask for the Chiltern Hundreds.” 

Mr. Begg tried to combat this resolve, but in vain. 

“ Travel by all means, Mr. Kimberley,” he said with a smile, 
“ but don’t desert the interests of Gallowbay. The New Harbor 
Bill will be before the House next session, and we had relied upon 
your influence. Your position in Gallowbay would be of weight 
with the committee.” 

“ You can get a better man than me,” said Kimberley. “ Major 
Heard would be a better man. 

‘‘ But Major Heard is a Whig,” cried the lawyer. 

‘‘Major Heard would do very well,” said Kimberley drearily. 
‘‘ But, of course, they will choose the man they like best. And I 
have a newspaper, Mr. Begg. It never succeeded very well, but 
the editor is a very clever person, and 1 think I shall make him a 
present of it. He told me that a newspaper was like a child, and 
had to have teething and measles and all those things before it be- 
came strong. It may have had them all by this time, and perhaps 
he can do something with it.” 

Mr. Begg, as a lawyer, naturally suggested the selling of the 
paper, but Kimberley answered. 

‘‘You see, Mr. Amelia has had everything to do with it so far, 
and if anybody is to profit by it he ought to be the person.” 

When Kimberley was strong enough he went back to London and 
called upon Mr. Amelia. Mr. Amelia had been awaiting for week 
after week those legal proceedings which Major Heard had so con- 
fidently promised, and had felt like a new Damocles. When Kim- 
berley entered the office he thought the sword had fallen. 

‘‘ I have had an illness,” said the millionaire, simply, “ and I am 
going abroad. 1 am giving up my seat in parliament, and I don’t 
want a newspaper any longer. ” 

Of course, Mr. Amelia, imagined in his conscious cunning that he 
could pierce that subterfuge. Kimberley was simply throwing him 
over. 

‘‘ The journal,” he said, “ is just beginning to be of influence and 
importance, and is just ceasing to be expensive. Indeed, I may say 
it pays its expenses' now.” 

‘‘ i am glad of that,” said Kimberley. ‘‘ If you can carry it on 
to your own advantage I shall be very pleased.” 

For a moment Mr. Amelia could scarcely conceal his own sur- 
prise; but nature • is elastic, and however you may pull her from 
her original shape she will settle back again. 

“I had prepared a schedule of liabilities,” said Mr. Amelia. 
” Perhaps I had better lay it before you now.” 

Kimberley looked at the schedule and produced his check book. 


‘‘THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 


i 

“He can very Well afford it,” said the editor, as Kimberley signed 
his name below a set of considerable figures. 

“ That is everything,” said Kimberley. 

“ Everything, thank you,” returned Mr. Amelia, “ Bht do I 
understand that you re-sign all interest in the journal?” 

“ Yes,” said Kimberley. “ 1 am going abroad, probably for a 
long time. I hope you will be able to make a property of it. If 
anybody profits by it,” he added, with a touch of his ancient shy- 
ness, “ it should be you. Good-by, Mr. Amelia.” 

“Good-by, Mr. Kimberley,” answered the editor; “I am very 
much obliged to you. ” 

Kimberley did not wait to see if Mr. Amelia’s gratitude for this 
unexpected favor would carry him to further heights of eloquence 
in thanks, and when he had gone the newly-made proprietor sat down 
and looked about him like a monarch of all he surveyed. Then, his 
exultation being too great to be endured without bodily motion, he 
got up and paced about the room, looking more like a bantam cock 
than ever. All on a sudden he seemed to shrink, and he dropped 
into the revolving chair with a look of horror and amazement. 

“ A trap!” he groaned. “ Of course, it’s a trap. He has handed 
everything to me and gone abroad. He was just as much responsi- 
ble as I was.” 

Apart from the fact that this surmise showed what Mr. Amelia 
himself would have done in what he believed to be the circum- 
stances, it was without result, and as week after week passed away 
in safety he felt himself sec are; but a month or two had to go by 
before he was certain enough of his own security to send forth a 
round of parapaphs announcing that “ Mr. William Amelia, who 
from the foundation of ‘ The Way of the World’ has conducted its 
destinies, has now acquired complete proprietorial rights over that 
journal, and purposes introducing into it several features which are 
altogether novel in English journalism.” 

In spite of anything and everything the little man was rising. He 
had his enemies — what man who is worth his salt has not? — but he 
knew that they hated him through envy of his success, and that their 
rancor was barbed by the contemplation in him of qualities which 
none of them possessed. His one bete noire was Maddox, wdio was 
rising also, and beginning to shine as a poet, and lately as a novel- 
ist. The clever little gentleman had command of the columns of 
many journals now, and from behind that shield of darkness which 
obscures so many brilliant writers in England he shot an’ows at his 
enemy, which might have stung pretty deeply if the enemy had not 
known the hand that impelled them. Mr. Amelia’s pet ruse was to 
treat the name of Kyrle Maddox as a nom de guerre, a method which 
secured an admirable air of impartiality. For, argued Mr. Amelia, 
if people suppose that you do not know a man, they cannot accuse 
you of spite toward him. Lest any of these sprightly shafts should 
miss their intended victim, the little man had them posted to Mad- 
dox, and since he had now a cashier, an office boy, and a private 
secretary all at his own disposal, he found it easy to get these friendly 
missives addressed by different hands. 

Agreeable as this occasional exercise was sure to be, it could only 
be occasional, and the greater part of Mr. Amelia’s time was still oc- 


238 ‘^TFE WAY OF THE IVORLD.” 

cupied l)y liis purely journalistic duties. He found leisure, how- 
ever, to write the romance of “ Jacob Zladder,” a novel long ago 
alluded to in these pages as having contained a bitter portrait of one 
of Amelia’s old enemies. Long before this brilliant work ap- 
peared the world was aware of its coming. From John o’Groats to 
Land’s End public expectation might have been supposed to be on 
tiptoe, if we could judge from the frequency^ with which an anx- 
ious country was informed of its inception, its progress, the title 
finally’ fixed upon, the nature of the plot, and the amount of money 
the gifted author was to receive for the work. The twenty or five- 
and- twenty journals with which Mr. Amelia was connected were all 
charmed with the book, and if the opinions expressed by others were 
not so favorable, what can be more obvious than that a father is 
likely to think with more partiality of his own child, or that how^- 
ever beautiful the child may be the outside crowd of fathers will not 
love it quite as dearly as if it were their own? 

Mr. Amelia’s way was not the common way of English journal- 
ists, but its advantages are clear to the dullest understanding. The 
average journalist toils on unknown. He expends much learning, 
and now and then high genius, in a calling which condemns him to 
obscurity. In measure with the quantity and quality of his work 
he is but poorly paid. Mr. Amelia throve, and will doubtless con- 
tinue to thrive. His name is likely to be a household word (for a 
year or two, whilst he himself lives to scatter it abroad) in two hemi- 
spheres. If nobody can point to much that he has actually done, 
everjLody can lay a finger on his published judgment of himself, 
and our British habit of anonymity makes this as valuable to him 
as if the judgments came from the pen of critics the most independ- 
ent and profound. 

Nowadays the bard has no need to weigh the solid pudding 
against the empty praise. The empty praise will bring the solid 
pudding in its turn. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

Kimberley, in the inclement months of the New Year, wandered 
on the continent, and wrote to nobody because he had nobody to 
write to. Jack Glare had heard from his agent in New Zealand. 
The land bought out there was as good as it could be expected to 
be, and the agent was doing all he could with it, but made it clear 
that he would be satisfied with his master’s early presence ; and 
Jack Clare himself had not quite made up his mind as to what he 
ought to do, and could do. On the receipt of this letter he traveled 
to Gallowbay, whither Ella and Alice had retired with his lordship 
their father, and laid his difficulties before his sweetheart 

“When I thought I had lost you, my darling,” said Jack, “I 
made up iny mind that I would go out there and work, because it 
seemed as if I could live if I took something real and tangible in 
hand. And now that I have found you again, what am I to do? 
We are very poor, and I do not see what roads to an honorable suc- 
cess in life are open to me here. Your father is very kind. He 
offers to settle upon you at least as much as I have myself, and in 
England that will still leave us poor. He offers me all the influence 


239 


‘'THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

he has at his disposal, and Montacute does the same. But then I 
have political opinions, and 1 can’t sell my conscience; and I 
have no influence on my own side at all. I might have it in time if 
1 could get into parliament, and could do anything there to make 
myself noticeable.” 

He spoke slowly and thoughtfully, with long pauses between the 
sentences, like a man who is feeling his way, and thinking it out bit 
by bit. Ella, with some neglected trifle of embroidery between her 
fiugei*s, sat with both hands in her lap, and regarded him gravely 
and tenderly. 

“You want to go out there, dear?” she asked. 

“When 1 was alone 1 wanted to go there,” he answered. “I 
want now, to do two things. 1 want to feel that 1 am doing some- 
thing of the world’s work, somehow, and I want to escape poverty. 
You see, my darling, there is a class in England which has gone on 
doing nothing for a long time, and at last the day has come when 
some of us will have lo turn our hands to the plow in one way 
or another. Now, Charley is useful in the House of Lords, and his 
politics and his domestic affairs take up all his time. He works 
hard and lives economically, and has his duty plain before him. He 
is doing it, too, like a man and a Briton. Now, what have 1 to do?” 

Ella sat silent for a time, regarding him with grave aflectionate 
eyes. 

“ These are serious matters. Jack, dear,” she said at last. “ Let 
us fa^;e them seriously. Do you wish me to go out to New Zealand 
with you?” 

“ I have thought of that,” he answered, “ and the idea frightens 
me for your sake. There would be no ‘ privations,’ in the common 
sense of the word, but there would be privations, too, which you 
would find real enough. There would be little or no society; little 
or no intercourse with social equals. The life would be dull — might 
even be terrible — to a gentlewoman. ’ ’ 

“ Should you ask me to milk and make hay, Jack?” she asked, 
smiling. 

“No,” said Jack, smiling also. “I think we might spare you 
that sort of thing.” He was suddenly serious again. “ But the life 
would be dull. I should have to buckle to in earnest, and learn to 
be a practical man. But, whenever I have thought of that sort of 
life for you, I have been filled with a sort of remorse and shame. 
You were made to shine in a court, my darling, and not to be hid- 
den in a New Zealand homestead.” 

“lam not altogether sure that I should care to shine in a court. 
Jack,” said Ella; “ 1 have had no great experience in that way, but 
perhaps I might not care for it, even if I had it. Tell me candidly 
whatever is to be said against New Zealand. So far, 1 see one thing 
only that seems to affect me at all. The distance looks dreadful.” 

“ Yes,” Jack answered; “ the distance is a serious matter.” - 

“ What else is there?” she asked. “ I see nothing else that moves 
me at all against it.” 

“ The inevitable dullness of the life.” 

“ We should be there together,” she answered, softly. “ Is the 
dullness so inevitable?” 

Jack looked round to where, at the far end of the room, Alice safi 


240 


“ THE WAY OF THE WOELD. 


55 


with her back toward the pair, immersed in a book, and then gently 
taking one of Ella’s hands he kissed it, and seemed so extremely 
loath to let it go when she strove to disengage it from his grasp, that 
she suffered him to keep it. 

“ Social prejudice,” he said then. “ Social prejudice is a strong 
thing/’ 

“ We should be far away from it,” she answered. 

She was naturally a woman of quick and keen perception, and, so 
far as Jack Clare was concerned, she lost nothing in this respect, but 
rather gained a great deal by being in love with him. She knew 
that this had been his scheme and his hope for years, and for his 
sake she argued in its favor. For her own part, she had no fear of 
being unhappy whilst they two were together. She loved him and 
he loved her, and that double knowledge seemed to make her strong. 
In comparison with it, the things that Jack had set against his own 
scheme looked trivial and unworthy of regard. 

“ Your father,” said Jack, when he had kissed her hand again. 
“ 1 have never yet ventured to broach the idea to him.” 

The girl was grave and silent for a long time. 

“ What advantages does your plan offer?” she asked at length. 

He answered slowly and with reluctance, as if he were struggling 
against something within himself. 

“I see no avenue to usefulness and prosperity in England. I 
think I see a road to both out there. The country is new and grow- 
ing fast. Land is increasing in value, and in a generation or two 
the estate will be a noble one. Here I might become, almost at the 
best, a hungry political place-hunter, for 1 could not afford to adopt 
politics unless 1 made the business pay; but there 1 could be of use. 
You see what you have taken hold of, dear.” 

“ Yes,” she said, with a smile so ravishing that Jack must needs 
kiss the imprisoned hand again. “ I see.” 

“ A social failure in old England, I am afraid,” said the young 
man, with sudden mournfulness. 

” Through any fault of yours?” she asked him, 

“ I think not,” he said, a little comforted. ” I hope not. 1 be- 
lieve not. And yet a social failure all the same. Born to be a so- 
cial failure. A poor man’s younger son.” 

” And 1 am a poor man’s eldest daughter,” she said, smiling once 
more. “ Was I born to be a social failure, too?” 

“You were bom to be an empress,” cried Jack; but he looked 
dejected a mere second after this outburst of enthusiasm. “ I feel 
wicked and remorseful when 1 think of asking you to leave everj^- 
body you have known, and all the ways of life you have known, to 
come with me to that far-away country.” 

“ Let us say and think no more of that, dear,” said Ella. “We 
elected each other, and we must make the best of our choice. And 
we love each other.” She blushed divinely, but she looked at him 
with perfect courage, and never drooped her eyes. “ If you wish to 
take me, I will go,” 

In a good Avoman’s love for the man she has chosen there is al- 
ways a sense of protection and defense. It does not matter in the 
least how stalwart or self-sufficient the man may be, oi how •weak 
Ohd helpless the •woman; her instinct is still to protect him, to guard 


241 


^‘the way of the world.’* 

and salve and defend. All good women, mamed or single, are 
mothers at heart, and there is something motherly in such a 
woman’s affection for her lover or her husband. It is mixed, of 
course, with all sorts of worship and awe and passion, and what 
not ; but it is there as one of the strongest ingredients in the whole 
wonderful and beautiful thing. 

To Lady Ella Santen*e, who was very thoroughly a woman, this 
wung man seemed to have been given into her hands to care for. 
The very well-spring of her nature was self-sacrifice, and if so much 
has not been shown already she has been ill-drawn indeed. But 
here her sense of self-sacrifice became an intense and sacred joy. 
All Ogures of speech apart, she would have died to have made Jack 
happy, and she had no room left in her nature for any coyness, real 
or pretended. She was prouder and happier to take him than any 
words could say, and mere worldly considerations were so apart that 
in the presence of her love he might have been an emperor and have 
loved her just as well, and it would have made no tittle or jot of dif- 
ference in her joy and pride. And though women be taught never 
so carefully the sinfulness of nature and the advantages of wealth 
and station, the best of them will go back to nature after all, if you 
give them but half a chance, and will lead happy natural lives, to 
the infinite blessedness of their husbands and of the children who 
shall hereafter remember a mother who was like an angel, and 
whose mere memory seems to make all other women sacred. 

“ It seems a selfish and cruel thing,’* said Jack, still holding her 
hand, and looking at her with a sort of yearning remorsefulness. 

“ To see you happy will make me happy always,” she answered. 
“ If you were disposed to sit down idly here at home, and do 
nothing, it would be a selfish and a cruel thing.” 

And keenly as Jack Clare felt about the matter, he saw nothing 
else for it but expatriation. He had high hope about the New Zea- 
land scheme, and was full of thoughts of the family that might be 
founded in that distant land. 

“ Can we tiy it, darling?” he asked, after anotheiTengthy silence. 
“We are safe against monetary loss, 1 think, because there is 
nothing 1 have sent out there, or bought out there, which will not 
realize all it cost me. And if we find life dull or unhappy we can 
cpme home again, with but little time lost, for we are both young as 
yet, and can cast ourselves upon the stream of English life again,” 

“ Are you afraid of your own happiness there?” she asked. 

“I?” asked Jack, with a bright wonder in his eyes. “With 
you?” 

“ I can trust my own,” she said. > 

All this conversation was necessarily carried on in the lowest pos- 
sible tone, and this sweet declaration was spoken in a whisper. She 
leaned forward a little as she made it, and Jack was leaning forward 
also, so that her lovely blushing face was close to his. He knelt 
softly and noiselessly beside her and drew the blushing face nearcT 
to his own. She yielded to him and he kissed her on the lips and 
eyes, and then when he placed both anus about her she yielded still, 
and allowed her head to rest upon his shoulder. 

“ Whither thou goest,” she whispered, “ 1 will go.” 


24^ ^^THE WAY OE THE WORLD.” 

“ 1 shall be glad,” said Jack Clare that same afternoon, “ if you 
can give me a little of your time.” He spoke to Windgall, who 
noticed that he looked a trifle pale. 

“ More trouble,” said his lordship inwardly. His experiences had 
taught him to forebode trouble. “ What is in the wind now? — Cer- 
tainly, Clare,” he answered aloud. “1 was just about to take a 
stroll and a smoke. Shall we talk outside?” 

“ As you please,” said Clare, and they sallied into the park to- 
gether. 

” 1 have been thinking over what you were good enough to say to 
me some weeks ago,” Jack began, and then broke down for a 
minute. 

” About your future?” said his lordship. 

“Yes,” Jack assented. 

“Well,” said Windgall, “1 talked the matter over with 3^our 
brother Montacute a day or two later, when I met him in town. 
He agreed with me that if you could be brought to be quiet about 
your own political predilections, that between us we might so some- 
thing. He promised to write to you.” 

‘ ‘ He wrote, ’ ’ answered Clare. 

“ And you replied to him?” 

“Yes. * i told him how sorry 1 was to disappoint him — how 
sorry 1 was to disappoint you both. But 1 can’t help it, now. 1 
can’t do it. 1 should be a scoundrel if I did it.” 

“ Well, well,” said my lord, somewhat impatiently, “ and what 
do you propose to do?” 

“You know, 1 think, sir,” answered Jack slowly, “ that I have 
bought land in New Zealand.” 

“Well,” said Windgall, “ it’s not likely to have fallen greatly in 
value. You can easily find a purchaser. 1 gather from the Emi- 
gration Reports, that there is rather a rush to New Zealand just now, 
and that land is selling rapidly.” 

“ I have been speaking seriously with Ella,” said the youngster 
with a beating heart, “ and we have decided that it will be better 
not to sell it. W e have been trying to face our future seriously and 
unromantically, and we both see how little chance there is of finding 
an honorable and lucrative career in England — ” 

“ Great Heaven!” cried his lordship, facing suddenly round. 
“ Don’t let me think that 1 am talking to a madman, Clare.” 

“ I will give you no need to think that, sir, if I can help it,” an- 
swered Clare a little stiffly. “ I knew I should probably have to 
encounter some opposition on your part, but 1 trusted, and I still 
trust, that you will not make it insurmountable.” The earl walked 
on with a step which revealed his annoyance plainly, but as yet he 
said nothing, and the young man proceeded. “ Since you did me 
the honor to set me on my present footing, 1 have thought every 
day and almost every hour of every day about this question. I can 
see no single way, sir, for an honorable ambition to fulfill itself in 
England.” 

“ Do you mean to tell me, Clare,” cried Windgall wheeling round 
again, ‘ ‘ that you have ever for a moment seriously contemplated the 
possibility^ of taking my daughter out to New Zealand?” 

His indignation and amazement were so real and apparent that the 



243 


*^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” 

young man was abashed for a minute, and seemed himself to recog- 
nize a certain positive enormity in the scheme. But a little reflection 
brought him back to where he had always been since this scheme 
had begun to be a part of his thoughts. Rightly or wrongly he 
could see no room for himself in old England, and a hand that 
' Would scarcely be denied seemed to beckon him to the new country. 

“ Suppose, sir,” he ventured to say at last, “ that we permit an 
experiment to be experimental. Y ou were so kind as to ofter Lady 
Ella a certain dower. If we go to New Zealand we shall not need 
that, and if you were still disposed to bestow it, it might be allowed 
to lie by and increase.” 

“ 1 decline,” said the earl, mightily stiff and majestic, “ to enter- 
tain the scheme at all. When 1 wrote to you as 1 did, 1 naturally 
expected that you would be prepared to avail youmelf of such assist- 
ance as your friends might be able to afford you. 1 certainly never 
expected to be confronted by any such a hare-brained proposal as 
this. I decline utterly and completely to entertain the idea at all. 
Utterly and completely,” he added with angry emphasis, “ utterly 
and completely.” 

” Better men than I, sir, have already embarked in colonial enter- 
prises,” said Jack gloomily. 

” No doubt,” cried Windgall angrily. ‘‘ And you, sir, may follow 
the example of your betters when you choose, but you will not take 
my daughter with you.” 

He had not liked Clare for a long time, and in his heart he had 
been sore at the fact that he was compelled to recall him. This 
proposal afforded him the first opportunity he had ever had for giv- 
ing vent to his anger, and for the moment he rejoiced in it, more 
than a little. But then came cool refiection, and with it the memory 
of the truth that this time he had really sold his daughter — though 
he had sold her to the man she loved, he had sold her none the less 
— for Kimberley’s ninety thousand pounds. 

The walk, which did not extend far, was concluded in silence, and 
the two men parted in silence. Windgall was so angry that he found 
it hard work to leave the theme alone, and was on the very edge of 
further speech about it a hundred times. He had scarcely re-entered 
the house when he met Ella. 

“ My — my dear,” he began with an 5 dhing but a face and a voice 
of affection, “ what is this nonsense Clare has been talking of— this 
precious emigration scheme of his?” 

” Papa,” said the girl, “ 1 shall be sorry to leave you, but it will 
be for the best. Captain Clare is right. England is not a good 
place for younger sons.” 

” Are you both mad together?” cried the tormented nobleman, 
but his daughter’s look brought him to the consideration that he 
was no longer free to express himself with the emphasis and direct- 
ness he had lately employed. ” Really,” he went on with a manner 
considerably modified. “ I have no wish to take a tone like that, 
but I don’t know what to make, of this amazing proposal.” 

“ But why is the proposal so amazing?” she asked him. “We 
have talked it over quite seriously, and we both think it for the 
best.” 


244 <^THE WAY OF THE * WORLD. 

Windgall’s restraint upon himself was unequal to the anger this 
speech inspired. 

“ Let me hear no more of this,” he said wrathfully. ” I— 1 won’t 
endure it. If 1 had dreamed that Clare could have brought such a 
plan to me, and that you would indorse it, I — I — ” 

His wrath brought him to a standstill. 

“ 1 am sorry you think so ill of it,” said Ella quietly. 

” And what does that mean?” cried her father. She was silent. 
” Does it mean that my will is to be defied? Does it mean that this 
ridiculous project is to disgrace me in the eyes of all the world? 
That my daughter is to marry an emigrant as if 1 were an Irish 
cotter?” 

He walked up and down the room fuming. Ella had never seen 
him so abandoned to anger, and he had never spoken to her in such 
a voice before. 

“lam very sorry indeed, papa,” she said again. 

” Will you kindly tell me,” he said, stopping in his excited walk 
and facing her, “ what that reiterated phrase may mean? I don’t 
want your sorrow, Ella. I want your obedience.” 

Nothing more unfortunate for himself could have been conceived 
than those two last angry phrases, and he had no sooner uttered 
them than he framed a retort for himself, which, if Ella had spoken 
it, would have crushed him. Had he not had enough of both al- 
ready? She had given him sorrow with obedience these four years. 

” I beg your pardon, my dear,” he said. “ 1 spoke hastily. 1 
beg your pardon. No man ever had a better daughter. 1 had no 
right to speak so. 1 beg your pardon.” 

” Pray say no more, dear,” she answered him, with an arm about 
his neck. “ Let us talk of this quietly, and if it is not for the best 
we will not go.” 

My lord was bitterly dejected all the evening, and next day he 
went over to Gallowbay and laid the matter before Mr. Be^g, who 
really seemed but little surprised by the proposal, though Windgall 
tried to make it look as amazing as he could. 

“ It will be a great grief to part with Ladj;^ Ella,” said Mr. Begg 
sympathetically. “ But m these days of rapid communication (it is 
only a matter of a month or thereabouts) it would be easy to see her 
often. And there is a great career open out there for energy and 
enterprise, my lord. There is an aristocracy there, of a sort, already. 
In a hundred years there will be a genuine aristocracy, great fam- 
ilies, great estates. It is a fine country, my lord, a fine country.” 

These opinions crushed his lordship without in the least softening 
his distaste. 

“But,” said he, by and by, “there is such a thing as public 
opinion at home. ” 

“ If your lordship does me the honor to ask my opinion on that 
matter,” said Mr. Begg (and Windgall nodded to signify that he 
wanted an opinion), ‘ ‘ I believe that enlightened public opinion will 
applaud the young gentleman’s choice and the lady’s courage. I 
am a devout believer in the future of the British colonies. And I 
do not suppose, my lord,” concluded Mr. Begg, with something 
which, in an elderly lawyer, amounted almost to enthusiasm, “ I do 
not suppose that anywhere in the world the son and daughter of 


^^THE AVAY OF THE WORLD.” 245 

English noblemen would meet with more social consideration than 
in the English colonies. They will have no social rivals, and there 
will he no social positions the colony can bestow which will not be 
open to the son of Lord Montacute and the son-in-law of the Earl of 
Windgall.” 

Now all this did considerablj'^ soften my lord’s distaste, and indeed 
he had made such a pother to begin with that he had almost ex- 
hausted opposition by carrying it too far. When Ella had brought 
him to a final conversion he began to talk about the thing with com- 
placency, and to anticipate the objections of his friends he adopted 
Mr. Berg’s arguments and spoke of Jack Clare as if he were a sort 
of missionary of aristocracy going out to inoculate colonial folk. 

This sudden and unexpected conversion was brought about quite 
naturally, however abrupt it may seem, for Windgall saw clearly 
that Ella meant to abide by Captain Clare, and that she would not 
have yielded him up again for a wilderness of fathers. 

So in due time all the magnates connected with both houses, 
whether by ties of kindred or friendship, were gathered together, 
and the Right Honorable John George Alaric Fitz Adington Clare 
and the Lady Ella Louisa Santerre were bound together in the ties 
of holy matrimony with much pomp and all the customary signs of 
rejoicing. The purposed emigration was not hidden, but was pro- 
claimed as it were from the housetops, and not only did the speak- 
ers allude to it at the wedding breakfast, but the newspapers made 
a considerable fanfaronade about it, and set it out as the beginning 
of a new era in the history of the colonization of the British posses- 
sions, so that the Honorable Jack and Lady Ella were familiar in 
the mouths of New Zealand folk a week or two before they saw 
their new home, and were received on their arrival with great hos- 
pitality and consideration. 

o 


AN EPILOGUE. 

In the height of the season of the year 1882 Mr. Bolsover Kimber- 
ley attired himself one evening in the plain black and white which 
is the distinguishing sign of gentlemen, nobodies, and waiters. It 
was a Wednesday evening, and he was bound to a great dinner in a 
fashionable square. He wore no blazing solitaire in his shirt front, 
but three very small studs of gold. There was not a ring upon his 
fingers, and a plain ribbon of black silk served him in lieu of watch 
chain. For some years past it had been a matter of general observa- 
tion that, for a millionaire and a noumau riche, Mr. Kimberley was 
curiously quiet in his dress. For a long time after that terrible 
scene in the King’s Avenue his discarded finery had made his body 
servant glorious, and there was still a small safe in Kimberley’s bed- 
room in which reposed a remarkable assortment of rings and chains 
and pins, none of which for many a day had seen daylight or gas- 
light as an accessory of Kimberley’s attire. 

He was dressed cn this particular evening much earlier than he 
need have been, and his manner was marked by a certain nervous 


246 ‘^THE WAY OF THE WORLD.” . 

anxiety. He looked often at his watch and finally, the evening being 
beautifully clear and warm, set out on foot somewhat before the 
necessary time. Arriving early at the great house in the fashiona- 
ble square he was received with considerable distinction, and passed 
from one to another with shy salutations. Alihost immediately follow- 
ing upon his own entry came a broad-shouldered and stately gentle- 
man of something over thirty, with gray eyes and a great auburn 
beard, and with him a lady of singular beauty, some four or five 
years younger. W ith these, a gray man, slight and spare, who, ob- 
serving Kimberley, crossed over to him instantly and shook hands 
with great warmth. 

“ You have met Clare already, 1 understand?” he said. 

“ Twice or thrice,” replied Kimberley. 

The bearded man crossed over a moment later, bringing the lady 
with him. 

Kimberley shook hands with both and the four formed a group 
together. 

“You must let me congratulate you on j^our maiden speech,” 
said Kimberley to the bearded man. “ I have heard it spoken of 
everywhere. ’ ’ 

“Oh!” said the other, “ when you praise my speeches, you laud 
her ladyship. She makes the bullets and 1 fire them.” 

“ Oh,” said the gray man bending over the lady, “ Clare tells me 
that you have become a mighty politician, Ella.” 

“ That is Jack’s nonsense, papa,” said she in a voice rippled with 
laughter. 

“The plain truth of the matter is,” declared the bearded man 
with an admiring smile at her, ‘ ‘ that Ella should be in the House 
herself. If she were there your lordships would learn a thing or 
two. How well you are looking, Kimberley. Better, even, than 
four years ago.” 

“ But the colonies beat us all,” said Kimberley with shymirthful- 
ness. “ New Zealand has made quite a giant of you.” 

At this point came a lady to the group. 

“ My dear Ella, 1 called this afternoon and was dreadfully disap- 
pointed to find you away. But 1 insisted upon seeing the children, 
and oh, what darlings they both are. 1 believe little Alaric knew 
me again, though he was but three when 1 first saw him. He came 
to me and kissed me at once, and dragged me off to see the new 
rocking horse, which had just arrived.” 

“ The new rocking horse?” said Ella. 

Kimberle}’^ blushed and looked conscious. 

“Really, Kimberley,” cried Clare, “you’ll spoil the children. 
Kimberley’s face betrays him, my dear. Mr. Kimberley is the ogre 
of our household. Lady Caramel. He has emptied the Lowther 
Arcade into the nursery, and the little rascals speak disrespectfully 
of Santa Claus because of him. ‘ I don’t care about Santa Claus, ’ 
said the four-year-old this morning, ‘ when I threatened him witii 
the loss of the old gentleman’s favor. ‘ Mr. Kimberley is better 
than Santa Claus.’ ” 

“1 am very fond of children,” says the little man, “ and it is 
such a pleasure to please them.” He has not yet lost all his shy- 


‘<THE WAY OP THE WORLD.” 247 

ness, but it is no longer marked enougli to make anybody uncom- 
fortable. 

By and by Ella turns to speak to him, and with her he talks with 
no embarrassment, and with no pain. Has the weak heart forgotten 
the love that once broke it? No. That is not forgotten, or forgetta- 
ble, but Ella is a sort of angel to him — a Madonna. He will never 
love again, never marry, but he is by no means unhappy or solitary 
or burdened with regrets. There broods upon the past a chastened 
twilight. His sorrows made her happiness, and he is quite content. 
When four years before this time Ella and her husband spent four 
or five months in England, his name was heard on the lips of Ella’s 
boy almost as often as the nurse’s. He loved to meet the child in 
the parks and to play with him at home, or to guide the three-year- 
old feet across the lawn at Shouldershott, and he was allowed to 
have his way. The second boy was born in England, and Kimber- 
ley was his godfather. Now again, after a second acquaintance of 
a month long, the elder boy has learned a second time to love him, 
and his godson has learned that easy lesson for the first time. He 
goes into the nursery as if he were a godmother instead of a god- 
father. It is the greatest joy of his harmless and benevolent life to 
be with the children, and again they let him have his way. 

And so even Kimberley’s romance has reached a happy close. He 
is happier than he could have been if he had never discovered Ella’s 
grief, and he has the heart to know it. He is grateful in his inmost 
soul to have known the truth in time. 

The feast is over. It is near midnight, and there are new people 
in the splendid rooms. Amongst them a distinguished Parisian 
journalist and a Londoner of the same profession, a bantam-like lit- 
tle man the latter, with upright self-assertive hair, keen eyes of no 
depth, and the promise of a double chin. 

“ A\ho is the man,” asks the Parisian, ” with the great beard of 
chatain clair? 1 forget how you call it in English.” 

“ Sweet auburn,” says Mr. Amelia; “ loveliest color of the plain.” 

“ Plait il?” from the Parisian. 

“ Nothing,” responds the little man with a transient air of shame. 
“ That is Lord Clare, the last of the new batch of peers.” 

‘‘And the spendid woman?” asks the Parisian. ‘‘His wife? 
No. He is too attentive.” 

“Yes. His wife. By no means ill-looking. ” 

“ 111-looking! Was Venus ill-looking?” 

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” says Mr. Amelia. “Our mutual 
friend is less black than he’s painted, and Venus was probably a 
good deal plainer. Everybody exaggerates. 

“ The little man? He is not otiheheait monde? Who is he?” 

“ A parvenu P responds Mr. Amelia with a half-bred air. ‘‘.I 
member the fellow years ago. He came into a fortune of a million 
and a quarter sterling — nearly forty millions of francs — think of it! — 
when he was a lawyer’s clerk.” 

“ And the aristocracy admit him to intimacy?” 

‘‘ Delighted to know mooey here,” says the little man in his own 
crisp way, “ At one time he was engaged^ to be married to the lady 


248 ‘^THE WAY or THE WORLD.’’ 

you compare ■with Venus. He threw her over, a little damaged, and 
the other man married her. Now the poor devil seems to have re- 
turned to his allegiance, and you see how they fawn on him. The 
new peer is as poor as Job, and everybody says the little snob will 
leave his money to my lord’s children.” 

” And so they make much of him? Well, that is natural. It is 
the way of the world.” 

Profoundest gratitude and sincerest friendship and tenderest love. 
] t was the way of the world to taint them all with that base fancy. 
But it was the way of the world to own them all, gratitude and 
friendship and love. 

The ways of the world are various and many. And along them 
travel all sorts of people. Very dark gray, indeed — almost black, 
some of them — middling gray, light gray, and here and there a fig- 
ure that shines almost with a pure white radiance. 


THE END. 


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fhe Seaside Library. 


ORl>l]\ARV EDIXIONe 


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P, 0» Box 3751. 17 to 37 Vandewater Street, New York. 


The following works contained in The Seaside Library, Ordinary Edition, 
are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address, postage fr^, ox 
receipt of 12 cents for single numbers, and 25 cents for double numbers, by tho 
publisher. Parties ordering by mail will please order by numbers. 


MRS. ALEXANDER’S WORKS. pr,ce. 

30 Her Dearest Foe 20 

36 The Wooing O’t 20 

48 The Heritage of Langdale 20 

370 Ralph Wilton’s Wei^ 10 

400 Which Shall it Be? 20 

533 Maid, Wife, or. Widow? 10 

1231 The Freres 20 

1259 Valerie’s Fate 10 

1391 Look Before You Leap 20 

1503 The Australian Aunt 10 

1595 The Admiral’s Ward 20 

WILLIAM BLACK’S WORKS. 

13 A Princess of Thule 20 

28 A Daughter of Heth 10 

47 In Silk Attire 10. 

48 The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton 10 

51 Kilmeny 10 

53 The Monarch of Mincing Lane 10 

79 Madcap Violet (small type) 10 

804 Madcap Violet (large type) .20 

243 The Three Feathers 10 

390 The Marriage of Moira Fergus, and The Maid of Killeena. 10 

417 Macleod of Dare 20 

451 Lady Silverdale’s Sweetheart 10 

568 Green Pastures and Piccadilly 10 

816 White Wings: A Yachting Romance. . . 10 

836 Oliver Goldsmith 10 

950 Sunrise: A Story of These Times 20 

i035 The Pupil of Aurelius 10 

1032 That Beautiful Wretch 10 

1161 The Four MacNicols 10 

1264 Mr. Pisistratus Brown, M.P., in the Highlands 10 

1429 An Adventure in Thule. A Story for Young People.. . , . 10 

1556 Shandon Bells 20 

Yoiande. 20 


H TRE 8EA8WE LIBMAHT. — Ordinmy Edition. 


CHARLOTTE. EMILY, AND ANNE BRONTE’S WORKS. 

3 Jane Eyre (in small type) 1C 

896 Jane Eyre (in bold, handsome type) 2C 

163 Shirley 3C 

311 The Professor 1C 

329 Wuthering Heights xo 

438 Villette 20 

967 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 2C 

1098 Agnes Grey ^ 

MISS M. E. BRADDON’S WORKS. 

26 Aurora Floyd 20 

69 To the Bitter End 20 

89 The Levels of Arden 20 

95 Dead Men’s Shoes 20 

109 Eleanor’s Victory 20 

114 Darrell Markham. 10 

'i40 The Lady Lisle 10 

171 Hostages to Fortune 20 

190 Henry Dunbar 20 

215 Birds of Prey 20 

235 An Open Verdict ^ 

251 Lady Audley’s Secret 20 

254 The Octoioon 10 

260 Charlotte’s Inheritance 20 

287 Leighton Grange 10 

295 Lost for Love 20 

322 Dead- Sea Fruit 20 

459 The Doctor’s Wife 20 

469 Rupert Godwin..., 20 

481 Vixen 20 

482 The Cloven Foot 20 

500 Joshua Haggard’s Daughter 20 

519 Weavers and Weft 10 

525 Sir Jasper’s Tenant 20 

639 A Strange World : 20 

550 Fenton’s Quest 20 

562 John Marchmont’s Legacy 20' 

572 The Lady’s Mile 20 

579 Strangers and Pilgrims 2C 

681 Only a Woman (Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon) 2C 

619 Taken at the Flood 20 

641 Only a Clod 20 

649 Publicans and Sinners 20 

656 George Caulfield’s Journey 10 

665 The Shadow in the Corner 10 

666 Bound to John Company; or, Robert Ainsleigh ........ . 20 

701 Barbara; or, Splendid Mfsery 20 

705 Put to the Test (Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon) 20 

734 Diavola; or. Nobody’s Daughter. Part 1 20 

784 Diavola; or, Nobody’s Daughter. Part II. . , 25 


THE SEASIDE LIBBARY.’^Ordinary Edition, Id 


MISS M. E. BRADDON’S WORKS.-Continued. 

811 Dudley Carleon 1C 

828 The Fatal Marriage 10 

837 Just as I Am; or, A Living Lie 20 

942 Asphodel 20 

1154 The Misletoe Bough 20 

1265 Mount Royal 20 

1469 Flower and Weed 10 

1553 The Golden Calf 20 

1638 Married in Haste (Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon) 20 

RHODA BROUGHTON'S WORKS. 

186 “Good-Bye, Sweetheart” 10 

269 Red as a Rose is She 20 

285 Cometh Up as a Flower. 10 

402 “Not Wisely, But Too Well” 20 

458 Nancy 20 

526 Joan 20 

762 Second Thoughts 20 

WILKIE COLLINS’ WORKS. 

10 The Woman in White 20 

14 The Dead Secret 20 

22 Man and Wife 20 

32 The Queen of Hearts 20 

38 Antonina 20 

42 Hide-and-Seek 20 

76 The New Magdalen 10 

94 The Law and The Lady 20 

180 Armadale 20 

191 My Lady’s Money 10 

225 The Two Destinies 10 

250 No Name 20 

286 After Dark 10 

409 The Haunted Hotel 10 

433 A Shocking: Story ' , . 10 

487 A Rogue’s Life 10 

551 The Yellow Mask. 10 

583 Fallen Leaves 20 

654 Poor Miss Finch 20 

675 The Moonstone 20 

696 Jezebel’s Daughter 20 

713 The Captain’s Last Love 10 

721 Basil 20 

745 The Magic Spectacles 10 

905 Duel In Herne Wood 10 

928 Who Killed Zebedee? lo 

971 The Frozen Deep - , . . . lo 

990 Tlie Black Robe 20 


1544 Heart and Science. A Story of the Present Time. . , • , . . 20 


iv THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. — Ordina/ry Edition, 


J. FENIMOBE COOPER’S WORKS. 

222 Last of the Mohicans 2C 

224 The Deerslayer 20 

226 The Pathfinder 20 

229 The pioneers 20 

231 The Prairie 20 

233 The Pilot 20 

685 The Water- Witch 20 

600 The Two Admirals 20 

615 The Red Rover 20 

761 Wing and- Wing 20 

940 The Spy 20 

1066 The Wyandotte 20 

1257 Afioat and Ashore 20 

1262 Miles Wallingford (Sequel to “Afioat and Ashore”) 20 

1569 The Headsman; or, The Abbaye des Vignerons 20 

1605 The Monikins 20 

1661 The Heidenmauer; or, The Benedictines. A Legend of 

the Rhine 20 

1691 The Crater; or, Vulcan’s Peak. A Tale of the Pacific 20 

CHARLES DICKENS’ WORKS. 

20 The Old Curiosity Shop 20 

100 A Tale of Two Cities 20 

102 Hard Times 10 

118 Great Expectations 20 

187 David Copperfield 20 

200 Nicholas Nickleby. 20 

213 Barnaby Rudge 20 

218 Dombey and Son 20 

239 No Thoroughfare (Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins) 10 

247 Martin Chuzzlewit 20 

272 The Cricket on the Hearth 10 

284 Oliver Twist 20 

289 A Christmas Carol 10 

297 The Haunted Man 10 

804 Little Dorrit 20 

S08 The Chimes 10 

817 The Battle of Life 10 

325 Our Mutual Friend 20 

837 Bleak House 20 

852 Pickwick Papers 20 

359 Somebody’s Luggage 10 

867 Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings 10 

372 Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices 10 

875 Mugby Junction 10 

403 Tom Tiddler’s Ground 10 

498 The Uncommercial Traveler 20 

621 Master Humphrey’s Clock 10 

625 Sketches by Boz 20 

689 Sketches of Young Couples 10 

1^7 The Mudfog Papers, &c ♦ . 10 


TEB SEASIDE LIBMART. — Ordinary Edition, 


CHAKLES DICKENS’ WORKS.— Continued. 

860 The Mystery of Edwin Drood 20 

900 Pictures From Italy 10 

1411 A Child’s History of England 20 

1464 The Picnic Papers 20 

1558 Three Detective Anecdotes, and Other Sketches 10 

1682 The Plays and Poems of Charles Dickens, with a few Miscel- 
lanies in Prose, now First Collected. Edited, Prefaced, 
and Annotated by Richard Herne Shepherd. First half. 20 
1682 The Plays and Poems of Charles Dickens, with a few Mis- 
cellanies in Prose, now First Collected. Edited, Pref- 
aced, and Annotated bj Richara Herne Shepherd. Sec- 
ond half 20 

WORKS BY THE AUTHOR OF “DORA THORNE.” 

449 More Bitter than Death 10 

618 Madolin’s Lover 20 

656 A Golden Dawn 10 

678 A Dead Heart 10 

718 Lord Lynne’s Choice; or. True Love Never Runs Smooth. 10 

746 Which Loved Him Best 20 

846 Dora Thorne 20 

921 At War with Herself 10 

931 The Sin of a Lifetime 20 

i013 Lady Gwendoline’s Dream 10 

1018 Wife in Name Only 20 

1044 Like No Other Love 10 

1060 A Woman’s War 10 

1072 Hilary’s Folly 10 

1074 A Queen Amongst Women 10 

1077 A Gilded Sin '. 10 

1081 A Bridge of Love 10 

1085 The Fatal Lilies 10 

1099 Wedded and Parted 10 

1107 A Bride From the Sea 10 

1110 A Rose in Thorns 10 

1115 The Shadow of a Sin 10 

1122 Redeemed by Love 10 

1126 The Story of a Wedding-Ring 10 

1127 Love’s Warfare 20 

1132 Repented at Leisure 20 

1179 From Gloom to Sunlight.. 20 

1209 Hilda 20 

1218 A Golden Heart 20 

1266 Ingledew House 10 

1288 A Broken Wedding-Ring 20 

1305 Love For a Day; or. Under the Lilacs 10 

1357 The Wife’s Secret 10 

1393 Two Kisses 10 

1460 Between Two Sins 10 

1640 The Cost of Her Love 20 

1664 Romance of a Black Veil. ^ 


/I THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. — Ordinary Edition. 


“THE DUCHESS’” WORKS. 

268 Phyllis (small type) ift 

689 Phyllis (large type) 20 

393 Molly Bawn 20 

445 The Baby lo 

499 “Airy Fairy Lilian” 20 

771 Beauty’s Daughters 20 

855 How Snooks Got Out of It 10 

tOlO Mrs. Geoffrey 20 

1169 Faith and Unfaith 20 

1518 Portia; or, “ By Passions Rocked.” 20 

1587 Monica, and A Rose Distill’d 10 

1666 Loys, Lord Berresford, and Other Tales 20 

ALEXANDER DUMAS’ WORKS. 

144 The Twin Lieutenants 10 

151 The Russian Gipsy 10 

155 The Count of Monte-Cristo (Quadruple Number) 40 

160 The Black Tulip 10 

167 The Queen’s Necklace 20 

172 The Chevalier de Maison Rouge 20 

184 The Countess de Charny 20 

188 Nanon 10 

193 Joseph Balsamo; or. Memoirs of a Physician., 20 

194 The Conspirators 10 

198 Isabel of Bavaria 10 

201 Catherine Blum 10 

223 Beau Tancrede; or, The Marriage Verdict (small type). ... 10 
997 Beau Tancrede, or. The Marriage Verdict (large type).... 20 

228 The Regent’s Daughter 10 

244 The Three Guardsmen 20 

268 The Forty-five Guardsmen 20 

276 The Page of the Duke of Savoy 10 

278 Six Years Later; or, Taking the Bastile 20 

283 Twenty Years After 20 

298 Captain Paul . 10 

306 Three Strong Men 10 

318 Ingenue 10 

331 Adventures of a Marquis. First half 20 

331 Adventures of a Marquis. Second half 20 

342 The Mohicans of Paris. Vol. I. (small type) 10 

1565 The Mohicans of Paris. Vol. I. (large type) 20 

1565 The Mohicans of Paris. Vol. II. (large type) 20 

1565 The Mohicans of Paris. Vol. III. (large type) 20 

1565 The Mohicans of Paris. Vol. IV. (large type) 20 

344 Ascanio 10 

608 The Watchmaker 20 

616 The Two Dianas 20 

622 Andree de Taverney 20 

664 Vicomte de Bragelonne (1st Series) 20 

664 Yicomte de Bragelonne (2d Series) SO 


THE SEASIDE TJBBAEY.—Ordina/ry Edition. YU 


ALEXANDER DUMAS’ WORKS.-Continued. 

664 Vicomte de Bragelonne (3d Series) 20 

664 Vicomte de Bragelonne (4th Series) 20 

688 Chicot, the Jester 20 

849 Doctor Basilius 20 

1452 Salvator: Being the continuation and conclusion of *‘The 

Mohicans of Paris.” Vol. 1 20 

1452 Salvator: Being the continuation and conclusion of “The 

Mohicans of Paris.” Vol. II 20 

1452 Salvator: Being the continuation and conclusion of “The 

Mohicans of Paris.” Vol. Ill 20 

1452 Salvator: Being the continuation and conclusion of “The 

Mohicans of Paris.” Vol. IV 20 

1452 Salvator: Being the continuation and conclusion of “The 

Mohicans of Paris.” Vol. V 20 

1561 The Corsican Brothers 10 

1592 Marguerite de Valois. An Historical Romance 20 

GEORGE EBERS’ WORKS. 

712 Uarda: A Romance of Ancient Egypt 20 

756 Homo Sum 10 

812 An Egyptian Princess 20 

880 The Sisters 20 

1120 The Emperor 20 

1397 The Burgomaster’s Wife. A Tale of the Siege of Leyden. 20 
1594 Only a Word 20 

GEORGE ELIOT’S WORKS. 

7 Adam Bede 20 

11 The Mill on the Floss (small type) 10 

941 The Mill on the Floss (large type) i 20 

15 Romola 20 

35 Felix Holt, the Radical 20 

o8 Silas Marner 10 

70 Middiemarch 20 

80 Daniel Deronda 20 

202 Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story 10 

217 Sad Fortunes of Rev. Amos Barton 10 

277 Brother Jacob 10 

309 Janet’s Repentance 10 

527 Impressions of Theophrastus Such 10 

1276 The Spanish Gypsy: A Poem 20 

MRS. FORRESTER’S WORKS. 

395 Fair Women 20 

431 Diana Care w 20 

474 Viva 20 

604 Rhona 


The Seaside Library— Pocket Edition. 

} (CONTINUED FROM SECOND PAGE OF COVER.) 


NO. PRICE. 

113 Mrs. Carr’s Companion. By M. Wight- 

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114 Some of our Girls. By Mrs. Eiloart. . 20 

115 Diamond Cut Diamond. By T. Adol- 

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116 Moths. By“Ouida” 20 

117 A Tale of the Shore and Ocean. By 

W. H. G. Kingston 20 

118 Loys, Lord Berresford, and Eric Der- 

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119 Monica, and A Rose Distill’d. By 

“ The Duchess ” 10 

120 Tom Brown’s School Days at Rugby. 

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121 Maid of Athens. By Justin McCarthy 20 

122 lone Stewart. By Mrs. E. Lynn Linton 20 

123 Sweet is True Love. “ The Duchess ”. 10 

124 Three Feathers. By William Black. . 20 

125 The Monarch of Mincing Lane. By 

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126 Kilmeny. By William Black 20 

127 Adrian Bright. By Mrs. Caddy 20 

128 Afternoon, and Other Sketches. By 

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129 Rossmoyne. By “The Duchess ’’ 10 

130 The Last of the Barons. By Sir E. 

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131 Our Mutual Friend. Charles Dickens 40 

132 Master Humphrey’s Clock. By Charles 

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133 Peter the Whaler. W. H. G. Kingston 10 

134 The Witching Hour. “ The Duchess’’ 10 

135 A (Jreat Heiress. By R. E. Francillon 10 

136 “ That Last Rehearsal.” By “ The 

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137 Uncle Jack. By Walter B^csant 10 

138 Green Pastures and Piccadilly. By 

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139 The Romantic Adventures of a Milk- 

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140 A Glorious Fortune. Walter Besant. . 10 

141 She Loved Him 1 By Annie Thomas. 10 

142 Jenifer.' By Annie Thomas. . . — -. .. 20 

143 One False, Both Fair. J. B. Harwood 20 

144 Promises of Marriage. By Gaboriau 10 

145 God and The Man. Robert Buchanan 20 

146 Love Finds the Way. By Walter Be- 

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148 Thorns and Orange-Blossoms. By 

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149 The Captain’s Daughter. From the 

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155 Lady Muriel’s Secret. By Jean Mid- 

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156 “ For a Dream’s Sake.” By Mrs. Her- 

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157 Milly’s Hero. By F. W. Robinson 20 

158 The Starling. Norman Macleod, D.D. 10 

159 A Moment of Madness, and Other 

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160 Her Gentle Deeds. By Sarah Tytler. 10 

161 The Lady of Lyons. Founded on the 

Play of that Title by Lord Lytton. 10 

162 Eugene Aram. Sir E. Bulwer Lytton 20 

163 Winifred Power. By Joyce Darrell.. ^ 

164 Leila ; or, The Siege of Grenada. By 


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165 The History of Henry Esmond. By 

William Makepeace Thackeray .. . 20 

166 Moonshine and Marguerites. By “The 

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167 Heart and Science. By Wilkie Collins 20 

168 No Thoroughfare. By (IJharles Dick- 

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169 The Haunted Man. Charles Dickens. 10 

170 A Great Treason. By Mary Hoppus. 30 

171 Fortune’s Wheel, and Other Stories. 

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172 “ Golden Girls.” By Alan Muir 20 

173 The Foreigners, By Eleanor C. Price 20 

174 Under a Ban. By Mrs. Lodge. ^ 

175 Love’s Random Shot, and Other Sto- 

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176 An April Day. Philippa P. Jephson, 10 

177 Salem Chapel. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 

179 Little Make-Believe. B. L. Far jeon . . 10 

180 Round the Galley Fire. By W. (3lark 

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182 The Millionaire. A Novel 20 

183 Old Contrairy, and Other Stories. By 

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184 Thirlby Hall. By W. E. Norris 20 

185 Dita. By Lady Margaret Majendie.. 10 

186 The Canon’s Ward. By James Payn. 20 

187 The Midnight Sim. Fredrika Bremer 10 

188 Idonea. By Anne Beale.... . 20 

190 Romance of a Black 'Veil. By the Au- 

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191 Harry Lorrequer. By Charles Lever 20 

192 At the World’s Mercy. By F. Warden 10 

193 The Rosery Folk. (>. Manville Fenn. 10 

194 “ So Near, and Yet So Far !” Alison. 10 

198 A Husband’s Story 10 

199 The Fisher Village. By Anne Beale.. 10 
203 John Bull and His Island. Max O’Rell 10 
208 The Ghost of Charlotte Cray, and 

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213 A Terrible Temptation. By Charles 

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212 Charles O’Malley, the Irish Dragoon. 

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208 The Ghost of Charlotte Cra}-", and 

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206 The Picture, and Jack of All Trades. 

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20.5 The Minister's Wife. By Mrs. Oliphant 80 
20;l John Bull and His Island. Max O’Rell 10 

202 The Abbot. By Sir Walter Scott 20 

201 The Monastery. By Sir Walter Scott 20 
200 An Old Man’s Love. Anthony Trollope 10 
199 Tlie Fisher Village. By Anne Beale.. 10 

198 A Husband's Story 10 

194 •“ So Near and Yet So Far ! ’ Alison . . 10 
198 The Rosery Folk. G. Manville Fenu. 10 
192 At the World’s Mercy. By F. Warden 10 
191 Harry Lorrequer. By Charles Lever. 20 
190 Romance of a Black Veil. By the Au- 
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189 Valerie’s Fate. By Mrs. Alexander. . 5 

188 Idonea. By Anne Beale 20 

187 The Midnight Sun. Fredrika Bremer 10 
186 The Canon’s Ward. By James Payu. 20 
185 Dita. By Lady Margaret Majendie. . 10 

184 Thirlby Hall. By W. E. Norris 20 

183 Old Contrairy, and Other Stories. By 

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182 The Millionaire. A Novel 20 

181 The New Abelai*d. Robert Buchanan 10 
180 Round the Galley Fire. By W. Clark. 

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179 Little Make-Believe. B. L. Far jeon . . 10 
178 More Leaves from the Journal of a 
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177 Salem Chapel. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 

176 An April Day. Philippa P. Jephson. 10 
175 Love’s Random Shot, and Other Sto- 
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174 Under a Ban. By Mrs. Lodge 2f) 

173 The Foreigners. By Eleanor C. Price 20 

172 Golden Girls.” By Alan Muir. 20 

171 Fortune’s Wheel, and Other Stories. 

By “ The Duchess” 10 

170 A Great Treason. Bv Mary Hoppus. 30 
169 The Haunted Man. Charles Dickens. 10 
16S No Thoroughfare. By Charles Dick- 
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167 Heart and Science. By Wilkie Collins 20 


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166 Moonshine and Marguerites. By “ The 

Duchess” 10 

165 The History of Henry Esmond. By 

William Makepeace Thackeray .. . 20 
164 Leila; or, The Siege of Grenada. By 

Sir E. Bulwer Lytton 10 

163 Winifred Power. By Joj'ce Darrell.. 20 
162 Eugene Aram. Sir E. Bulwer Lytton 20 
161 The Lady of Lyons. Founded on the 

Play of that Title by Lord Lytton. 10 
160 Her Gentle Deeds. By Sarah Tytler. 10 
159 A Moment of Madness, and Other 


Stories. By Florence Marryat 10 

158 The Starling. Norman Macleod, D.D. 10 

1.57 Milly’s Hero. By F, W. Robinson 20 

156 “ For a Dream's Sake.” By Mrs. Her- 
bert Martin 20 

155 Lady Muriel’s Secret, By Jean Mid- 

dlemass 20 

154 Annan Water. By Robert Buchanan, 20 
153 The Golden Calf. Miss M. E. Braddon 20 
152 The Uncommercial Traveler. By 

Charles Dickens 20 

150 For Himself Alone. By T. W. Speight 10 
149 The Captain’s Daughter. From the 

Russian of Pushkin 10 

148 Thorns and Orange-Blossoms. By 

the Author of “ Dora Thorne ”... 10 
147 Rachel Ray. By Anthony Trollope. . 20 
146 Love Finds the Way. By Walter Be- 

sant and James Rice 10 


144 Promises of Marriage. ^ Gaboriau 10 
143 One False. Both Fair. J. B. Harwood 20 
141 She Loved Him ! By Annie Thomas. 10 
140 A Glorious Fortune. Walter Besant. . 10 
139 The Romantic Adventures of a Milk- 


maid. By Thomas Hardy 10 

138 Green Pastures and Piccadilly. By 

William Black 20 

137 Uncle Jack. By Walter Besant 10 

136 “That Last Rehearsal.” By “The 

Duchess ” 10 

135 A Great Heiress. By R. E. Francillon 10 

129 Rossmoyne. By “ The Duchess ” 10 

122 lone Stewart. By Mi-s. D. Lynn Linton 20 
121 Maid of Athens. By Justin .McCarthy ^ 
115 Diamond Cut Diamond. By T. Adol- 
phus Trollope 10 

110 Under the Red Flag. By Miss Braddon 10 

109 Little Loo. By W. Clark Russell 20 

105 A Noble Wife. By John Saunders 20 

104 The Coral Pin. By F. Du Boisgobey. 30 
97 All in a Garden Fair. 'Walter Besant. . 20 
54 A Broken W'edding-Ring. By the Au- 
thor of “ Dora Thorne ” 20 

51 Dora Thorne. By the Author of “ Her 

Mother’s Sin ” 20 

1, Yolande. By William Black ^ 


The above books are for sale by all newsdealers, or wdll be sent to any address, postage pre- 
paid, by the publisher, on receipt of 12 cents for single numbers, and 2.5 cents for double numbers. 
Parties wishing the Pocket Edition of The Seaside Library must be careful to mention the Pocket 
Edition, otherwise the Ordinary Edition will be sent. Address, 

GEOKGE MIJNIIO, Piiblislier, 

1*. (). Box 3751* 17 to *27 Vandewntei* Street, New York, 



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